Count Dracula's sweetheart Tabitha
by GillianDrake
Summary: Katarina's back! You kind of have to read Count Dracula's sweetheart before you read this. It is the twenty-first century and Katarina has been reincarnated...hopefully this time they'll be able to make it work...
1. Memories

He had watched her. Every fluid movement, every innocent gesture. His cold heart had shrivelled at her loss and everything around him had cried out in sheer agony.

The mountains screamed with sorrow and the trees grew hollow and died. The air had grown so crisp that one could snap it like a dead branch.

Katarina.

She was reborn into the twenty-first century. He was sure of it. She had been so close-only forty feet away from him...but she was so far away.

"What did you say her name was again, Vlad?" he asked of his precious son and heir...and Grand Vampire Regent (at least until his training was complete). His throat contracted tightly as buried memories surfaced in his consciousness.

Her creamy-gold skin flushed with exertion.

Her moist, wine red lips pressed hungrily against his.

Her keening cries of bliss as she came apart in his arms.

How had he forgotten?

"Er...I think her name's Tabitha." The sixteen-year-old Vlad said warily, remembering his father's poor track record in the 'Be polite. Don't bite' department. "Mmm" the Count said distractedly, "interesting name." The Count's icy blue eyes were lost in thought and his harshly chiselled features were softened slightly. Vlad frowned in concern; what was he thinking? He wondered. "Dad?" he ventured.

"Yes, Vlad?"

"Are you ok?" Vlad would have enquired as to whether the Count was planning on having Tabitha for dinner, but the look on the Count's face was a little more...'tender' didn't quite fit, but Vlad couldn't think of another word for it. It was more or less the same look that his father had when he was thinking about Vlad's absent mother; Magda. "Never better, son." Count Dracula answered with a slight, reassuring smile.

Behind that smile, he remembered that night- remembered the horrors of the night of Katarina's death...

It was night. The air was chill. That night, he was going to ask her to marry him. He had come back expecting her to be there, waiting for him, round with his son. Victor.

He remembered how his baby boy had been so cruelly ripped out of her womb and staked into the ground. The sickening squelch as the stake had been rammed through the lifeless body of the child slammed through his ears...again.

She had been tied to a stake on top of a burning pyre. Her beautiful, cinnamon coloured hair lank, darkened with blood about her shoulders. He had watched her burn. Impotent rage had filled him. He was unable to stop it. Shrieking cackles rent the air.

And then she was gone.

The Count did something for the first time in centuries. He let a tear fall down his pale cheek. He had lost so much that night that his soul had been unable to face the world...How had he forgotten!? Forcefully, with an angry swipe of his elegant hands, he obliterated that drop of moisture before his son could see.

She was here. Now. In this century.

"Tabitha." He whispered the name reverently. "I'm coming for you, my love." And he wouldn't fail her again.

***

"Hi, Vlad." Tabitha said brightly as he opened the canteen door for her. "Thanks." She said with a smile.

"Anytime, Tabitha-"

"Tabby...please. Tabitha is a real mouthful when you try saying it in a hurry." Vlad had to agree with her there, but before he could say anything, Robin bounced to his side and dragged him away from one of Stokely Grammar's newest additions, angrily gibbering some lunacy about .uk.

Tabby merely smiled as Vlad was dragged away by the lanky, pallid boy with the _wicked_ leather jacket. She liked Vlad and his peculiar friend, Robin, but unlike seemingly every other girl in the school (and a few boys) she wasn't totally enthralled by Vlad's fantastical looks; he was simply a nice boy who, along with Robin, was actually quite amusing. Little did she know that that was why Vlad had liked her on sight. He wasn't completely enamoured with the idea of constantly chased by girls, and Tabitha made a refreshing change. She didn't conform to social dictates either. She wasn't fashionably skinny, rather, she was a solid size fourteen but she was amazingly bright and full of opinions about everything. Vlad looked back at the girl and smiled as he remembered Tabitha's first French lesson...

"Bonjour, Tabitha." The teacher had said, not expecting much to be said back.

"Bonjour, Madame Florin, cava?" The woman had blinked stupidly before replying.

"Oui, cava bien, merci, et toi, Tabitha?"

"Hmm, cava bien mais je suis un peu fatigue." Tabitha had said with a mock grimace.

"Oui? Oh, c'est nul!"

"D'accord, Madame." Tabitha laughed as the rest of the class stared dumbstruck at her.

"Ou habites tu?"

"J'habite a Stokely, pres de Cardiff au pays du galles, et toi aussi?"

"Oui, Tabitha. Tres bien." Miss Florin had said with a purely delighted smile, that Vlad was sure must have damaged her face in some way, because her face had seemed to be set in a permanent frown.

"Merci beacoup, Madame."

Since then, Tabitha had been called all sorts of unsavoury names like "Teacher's pet" and "nerd." She bore all the names with dignity and a perverse smile as she told them "at least, because I'm doing so well now, I won't have to worry about growing up having to sell 'the big issue'. Tu comprends, imbecile?"

Tabitha wandered over to where her witchkin, Faye and Emily were standing in the lunch queue. Tabitha, Faye and Emily were three of the five foster children taken in by a five thousand year old witch named Selene Marcia. Gregori and Timothy, the other fostered witchkin, were sat at a table in the corner of the canteen alone, waiting for the girls to get their lunch and get to the table.

"Hi Faye, hi Emily." Tabby said.

"Hiya!" they said brightly, in unison.

"I've found something, Cat." Emily said, using Tabby's pet name as a prune-like dinner lady slopped rice pudding into a bowl for her.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, you know Vlad Count?"

"Yeah?"

"He's not human." That made Tabitha frown.

"Neither are lawyers or accountants...or dentists." Tabby added. "So what is he, then?"

"We dunno." Faye said in her South London drawl, looking covertly at the boy in question. "I mean, Em couldn't rummage around in his head," she said, referring to Emily's telepathic abilities which had been, up until then, flawless. "And unless he's being dipped in milk in the next thirty seconds, I can't see his future...He's not great for boosting a Witch's confidence, really." They all frowned, perturbed at what this all meant. Demon. Warlock. God-wannabe...what was he?

"Well, to my knowledge, he hasn't eaten anyone...D'you reckon Selene will let me out tonight?" Tabby murmured as a plan formed in her mind. "Dunno. Probably." Faye shrugged nonchalantly, letting her blood red bob...bob around a bit.

"I wonder if we're compatible." Emily said wistfully. Tabitha and Faye exchanged a knowing smile.

"Emmy, you do realise that you'd have to kill several girls in order to get to his side, don't you?" Faye said, "then again, getting rid of that super-bitch Delilah wouldn't do great harm to the world-"

"You could do that for me, couldn't you, Tabby?" Emily smiled winsome smile that lit up the whole of her pixie-like face in hope.

"Sorry, Em" Tabby laughed, "I think Selene would skin me alive if I did. Shame though. Delilah could do with being put six feet under something other than make-up" Emily's smile lingered wistfully as she gazed longingly at the dreadfully hot Vlad that made every girl in the school, bar Tabby and Faye, weak kneed.

A thought struck Tabitha like lightening.

"Em. I know you can't get into his head, but do you think you could plant the idea of inviting me over in his head-"

"What!?" Emily cried, sloshing the drink that she had absently poured, thoroughly offended.

"No! It's so I can get a lay of the land, go back there tonight and try to figure out what they are and-"

"Oh, yeah, sure. No problem." Emily said, her feathers de-ruffled knowing that Tabitha had no wish to encroach on her territory.


	2. Discoveries

At around four o'clock, Tabitha stepped inside the castle walls. There were cobwebs and lit candles everywhere...coolness! Tabitha would have squealed at the awesomeness of the place had she not had the self control. She was a sucker for macabre. She was swept away by her imagination- she could almost see a barbarian warlord carrying a petite, dark haired damsel over his shoulder as he laid claim to her body and heart. As an aspiring author, herself, she was seriously inspired.

Vlad and Robin led her into the main hall. Large didn't quite cover the size of the room. At the end of the hall was a throne-like seat flanked by candelabras. Tabitha immediately envisioned Prince John or some other vicious overlord sitting in that seat as he looked down upon his subjects as he sentenced them. She couldn't breathe as ideas slammed through her head at an ever increasing pace-Calm! Tabby ordered herself. She was there to find out what the Counts were, not to get funny ideas for her numerous literary projects that remained unfinished on her desk.

"Wow! Vlad! That must have cost a fortune" she stepped forward to touch it. She brushed her hand reverently over the plush red velvet lining and sucked in a breath at the smoothness of the wood panelling. Vlad and Robin gave her matching looks; most people that came into the castle were either very afraid or disdainful of the decor, suggesting a widescreen TV and a load of fancy lights...Tabitha was neither daunted by the place nor deprecating of it. Weird.

"Er...Yeah. That's my Dad's...chair. It's sort of a 'head of the family' thing...He goes ballistic whenever anyone else sits in it." Vlad said with a grimace as Tabby moved to sit in it. Her mouth formed a small O of understanding as she moved away from it. "I've heard that you come from Transylvania-is that true?" Vlad nodded warily as Robin bubbled over with pride for his friend "Yeah, he does, isn't it just so cool?"

"Yeah." Tabby said with unfeigned enthusiasm. "I've always been interested in the culture there and all the stories as well." Vlad started to shift uncomfortably at that, hoping she wasn't going to start accusing them of being Vampires. Being chased out by one pitchfork-wielding, angry peasant mob was enough. He strode forward, doing his best not to flit, and pulled a chair out from the dining table for her...it was so ornate and obviously antique that Tabby didn't want to sit in it for fear of repercussions in court over accidental criminal damage-God knew that she was like a bull in a china shop.

"Oi, maggot breath!" an irritable female voice called spitefully as the girl in question strutted through the door. "The council are on the phone. Apparently you have mental issues." She sneered, "ooo, Vlad, you've brought dinner." Tabitha made a mental note to never _ever_ turn her back on this girl- Tabby was fairly certain that they hadn't stopped at any shops on their way up the hill and Ingrid seemed far too evil for anyone's comfort. She could almost see the evil-looking girl with a steak knife and a sharp fork, waiting to devour Tabby if she gave her half the chance.

"This wretched cow is my sister; Ingrid" Vlad sighed regretfully, any sympathy that he might have felt for his older sister, evaporated on his sixteenth birthday; the day that his evil self merged with him. His spite, so far, had only seemed to come out in these verbal and sometimes physical spats that he had with his sister. His lip took on an angry curl. "Hello Ingrid. How's _Will_ today?" At this Ingrid spluttered with rage and buried pain. Tabby could see the tears in her eyes that threatened to spill over and felt a strong surge of sympathy for her. She didn't know who Will was or what had happened but the sympathy was there anyway, but she didn't dare express it. She knew Ingrid's type. Girls that would use any weakness in other people to an advantage, including sympathy.

"I'll take the call. And Ingrid? A touch of respect wouldn't go amiss" Vlad sneered. A splash of anger coloured Tabby's image of Vlad as the nice, amusing boy that she had previously been acquainted with. "Whatever, Vladarella." Ingrid spat angrily before she marched, gathering her scattered dignity, out of the door. Vlad quickly followed, his movements fluid and graceful. Tabby was grateful to see the back of him.

Tabby turned to Robin who had his mouth open to say something when a breathy, deadly seductive voice whipped through the air. "Ah, Robin. Where is Vlad?"

"Er..." Robin looked so uncomfortable talking to Mr Count that had Tabby not known better, she would have thought he was constipated. Little beads of sweat had formed on his brow... "I think he's on the phone. Ingrid said the council called." The Count grimaced before he turned to Tabitha.

His jaw dropped.

She was as beautiful as he remembered-if a little taller...He clamped his mouth shut before he started dribbling like a fool. Those eyes she had! Oh, Lucifer! He felt like a callow, untried youth again, just staring into those honey-brown eyes that sparkled wit and fire. Why had he taken up with Magda? Yes she was beautiful...but she wasn't Katarina or Tabitha.

Tabitha was no less affected. She sat up rigidly, desperate to make a good impression. She looked, enchanted, into his perfectly sculpted face. It was totally masculine. So tempting. She almost swore that her heart rate doubled. He was hotness personified. Forget dreadfully hot Vlad, this was God! His nose was slightly hooked although not overly, and his skin was deathly pale. His jaw was strong and he had dark hair that loosely brushed his shoulders. Tabitha had to force herself to breathe normally as he took her hand and bowed gracefully over it as he said huskily "enchanter mademoiselle"

"Hello." She managed in a small voice. Hello!? Tabby, please! Her inner voice cried.

"You must be Tabitha." He said with a smile, and if she wasn't mistaken, a fierce hunger in his eyes.

"Tabby, please, Mr Count." Tabby replied, putting all her life into her voice. The Count cocked an eyebrow.

"Tabby?"

"Yes. Like 'Tabby Cat'. It's like I told Vlad, 'Tabby', is a lot easier when you're in a hurry." A lump formed in her throat as his intensely blue eyes bored into her own. Robin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He just had the most enormous urge to beg them both to get a room...but considering that Vlad's Dad was a bloodthirsty vampire...not the best of ideas.

The Count smiled warmly, filled with a sudden need to clutch the young woman in front of him to his breast. "Now that you say it, I would concur." He chuckled the scary chuckle that Robin knew and feared. He paled and gulped fearfully; there was no way that he could take on the Count if he wanted to get at Tabby. "Where do you live?" The Count asked, as though with polite interest. Robin cringed. Please don't tell him, please don't tell him, please don't tell him...

"Oh, it's on the other side of town. The old mansion on St Tabitha's lane" Shit! "Please don't laugh at the coincidence- I still haven't quite heard the end of it from my family" why don't you just ask him to kill you? Robin inwardly yelled, why beat about the bush? He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands...

Suddenly, Dragnet started playing out of the blue. The Count had been leaning over her, looking into her eyes, searching the depths of her soul. His eyes quickly darted to where the noise was coming from...Tabitha's black, linen bag (affectionately known as the 'Mary Poppins' bag for the astounding amount that Tabitha managed to fit in it) "You're ringing" The Count murmured, amusement colouring his tone.

"Oh...yeah" Tabitha rummaged around her bag to find her mobile phone. Robin sighed with relief...saved by the bell...before she let slip an invitation into her bedroom that night.

"Hi...Yeah...I'm at the castle...Yeah...Now? Ok. See you in a bit...bye." Tabitha pressed the red phone on her keypad and looked up. "I'm really sorry Mr Count. I have to go. It was lovely to meet you and could you please thank Vlad for inviting me."

"Yes, I will and you must come again sometime." The Count said in that charming voice that had no doubt led hundreds of women to their doom.

"Bye, Robin"

"Bye Tab" Robin said numbly, simply relieved that it was all over. The Count was still grinning when the front door swung shut behind his favourite guest.

"Renfield!" That shout continued to ring in Robin's ears all the way through the evening.

***

It was a good thing that Selene had demanded Tabitha home-yes. Granted, she had been furious but the Counts were definitely not human. Especially the senior Mr Count. No-one should be that world-shatteringly handsome.

"You know in 'American Pie' they have 'M.I.L.F.s'?" she explained to Faye and Emily later on. They nodded in understanding. "Well..." This was really crude but Tabby had to say it. "Mr Count is a D.I.L.F." She blushed immediately as Faye and Emily smirked ruthlessly at her. "Shut up." She hissed at them in mock anger.

"Didn't say anything." Faye said, "But he is a bit old for you."

"I dunno, if your guy was rich as Croesus, you wouldn't care about age." Emily said objectively to Faye.

"Is he, though? Mr Count I mean." Faye asked.

"Faye! He owns a castle!" Tabitha cried with incredulity at Faye's temporary stupidity.

"Good point."

"Good point, nothing!" A sharp, female Caribbean voice entered the room and Selene popped into Tabitha's eight walled bedroom. "If you get caught doing what I think you're going to do, I'll take your precious IPod nano and feed it to the Venus cruncher" Tabitha paled visibly at the threat against her IPod. She looked up at Selene's lean, dark skinned, bespectacled form and cringed as she realised that Selene meant business. "Isn't the Venus Cruncher going a bit far?" Tabby asked weakly. The Venus cruncher was like a Venus flytrap...only bigger...and craved man-made materials-basically it was the household bin and as Selene said often 'it's good to recycle' but Tabby wasn't entirely sure that it was a good idea to save the planet only to hand it over to plants with teeth...And if Tabby's IPod went in _there_, no matter what she did, Tabby would not be able to put it back together again...and magic was useless in this case. "Surely this must be against the Geneva Convention" she muttered, the age old protest that teenagers had against their parents and guardians...that failed every time. "I promise I won't get caught, Mummy." Tabby said hopefully. Selene was a sucker for affection and Tabitha grinned happily when Selene sighed in defeat.

"You'd better not." She flipped her dark hair irritably, turned on her heel and popped out of the octagonal tower room.

"I take it she got that chemistry teacher's position, then" Timothy's lanky form appeared in the trap door that led into Tabitha's eight walled bedroom.

"Yeah." Emily said with a smile.

"Selene told you not to do that." Gregori muttered disapprovingly as he shoved Timothy up the ladder.

"Shut up!" Emily protested. "She told me not to push at her mental defences. I only did a surface scan of what she was thinking of at the time- she's really chuffed by the way." She added with a grin.

"So, _that's _why she's indulging my curiosity this evening." Tabitha laughed.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Tabby." Gregori warned with a frown plastered all over his tanned face.

"It's a good thing I have nine lives then, isn't it Greg? Ooh what's the time, Tim?"

"Time you got a watch." Gregori muttered. Tim, Faye and Emily smirked, knowing Tabitha's unreasonable dislike of watches. Tabitha poked her tongue out childishly at him and pulled out her beloved IPod. "Twelve-forty-five. Coolness." With that, she faced her floor length mirror. The candles that illuminated the room flickered and shuddered. After having seen 'the Hogfather' Tabitha just couldn't resist doing this...

Her faded black jeans and top dissolved into a velvet gown and a full length black cloak with a hood. Her hair curled around itself and coiled strands of itself neatly into a hairstyle that looked like it was stuffed with auburn haired kittens in it and was very similar to the one Michelle Dockery had when she played the granddaughter of Death.

She turned around to face the others.

"Be careful." Gregori warned, "your future is all murky at the minute and you're worrying Emily with your thoughts. If you need us, shout. Tim and I will get you out of there." He looked meaningfully at Tim, daring him to protest this. He didn't. Tabitha sighed. Gregori was a stick in the mud and a killjoy and all that lot-but he was a sweetheart.

"You worry too much, Greg." Before Gregori could say anything, Tabby snapped her fingers and zapped herself out of the room and popped herself in front of the castle gate.

The lights were off. Tabby couldn't sense any movement inside the castle, so she immediately zapped herself in to the main hall...none of the others had her level of ability, even Selene had said that, as Tabby's powers two years before her eighteenth birthday matched hers at five thousand years old, God only knew what level they would be at afterward. But Tabitha had been constantly reminded not to get cocky. As some really tuneless whistling split the air, Tabitha was wishing that she had taken it more to heart. She grimaced as a foul-smelling man shuffled into the hall...jeez, someone needed to look up the word 'bath'. She hurried out of the hall before said man caught her.

She slipped down a corridor. Quickly flew down a flight of steps. She let her sensory map of the place lead her to the information that she sought.

Her seeking finally led her to a door. Before she could reach out to push it open, it swung open, seemingly of its own accord. Her heart raced. She stifled her gasping breaths. "Please say that that was the wind" her inner voice whispered. She stepped gingerly into the pitch black chamber. She took several more careful steps,

Candles flickered on without Tabby's calling. Her heart pounded in her ears. A huge, black coffin lay proudly on an altar in the middle of the room. The door slammed shut behind her and locked itself. Tabitha whirled around. A small whimper caught in the back of her throat as she beheld an angry vampire-

Vampire!

Transylvania.

Vampire!

Hungry looks.

Vampire!

Pale.

Vampire! How had she not known? The Count wore a red and black, high collared robe. His previously icy blue eyes were now a flashing, violent red. And fangs. He had big, pointy fangs too. Bugger!

He grabbed her wrist, pulled her toward him and yanked back her hood. Tabitha sucked in a breath. He was sexy, dominant and he had fangs. What should by all rights have been a nightmare to Tabitha actually did have a perversely thrilling effect on her- who knew that she was a total freak?

"What are you doing here? What did you think you were doing, trying to sneak up on the Prince of Darkness?"

"Last time I checked, I was nowhere near Ozzy Osbourne" she retorted. She regretted it soon afterwards as he shook her with a snarl.

"So you thought to stake me in my sleep, Traitorous Bitch!"

"What!? No! We just didn't know what you were...I was curious. Please don't eat me or I swear, you will have the worst stomach ache of your life." That seemed to calm him down enough to stop shaking her, so she pressed on. "And I thought the word 'Traitor' had something to do with betrayal of someone who trusted you et cetera. I don't owe you anything and you don't owe me anything-" He shoved her away from him roughly. His eyes weren't red anymore but his glance was still murderous. "Curiosity killed the Cat, Tabby." He murmured as his eyes roved over her shuddering body.

"Yeah. That cliché is getting really old." Tabitha hissed irritably as she rubbed her sore wrist. The Count laughed at her irritation. She was still a fiery wench and that relieved him. He stepped toward her with a wolfish grin and tucked a runaway tendril of hair behind her ear. "It's good to see you again, Kitten." He said tenderly, knowing that she had no idea of his underlying meaning.

"I really shouldn't have come-" she started, her voice slightly panicked.

"No, you shouldn't, it was a stupid thing to do."

"Yeah. How was I to know that I was walking into a den of Vampires-"

"I can't let you tell anyone-"

"Oh, please! Like anyone would believe me! "oh yes, The Counts are vampires everyone" I'm new in town, I don't really want to be known as the village idiot."

"That's if I let you go at all" those words hung in the air. He disappeared as the candles flickered. A cold, feather-light touch on her nape alerted her to his presence behind her. She shivered, unsure whether a secret thrill made her do it or just the cold... "Stay still" he murmured in her ear. She suddenly felt very fragile and very killable...

"Get off me." Tabitha said quietly between clenched teeth, but his hands didn't cease their wandering. Tabitha silently hurled defensive words of power at him...tears stabbed at her eyes as she realised that they weren't working. She couldn't stop him. And some traitorous part of her mind didn't really want him to take his hands away. Damn my teenage hormones! She inwardly screeched. He roughly spun her in his arms. "Who are you, really?" She demanded. The Count smiled his wicked, heart-stopping smile as he said. "I am Count Vladimir Dracula."

"Dracula? Shouldn't you be dead? I mean I've read Bram Stoker's book-"

"Do you have any idea how much I got paid for the use of my name?" The Count asked, still remembering his fury at his character being destroyed at the end of the book...But Stoker had assured him that breathers liked endings where everyone lived happily ever after-except of course the monster. The book had been a stunning success that had made 'Dracula' a universally known name, so The Count had decided not to hold the ending against the fellow.

"I'm guessing a lot?"

The Count nodded with a grin as he struggled to remember the equivalent amount in today's monetary values-whatever. It wasn't important.

As he bent his head towards hers, Tabitha panicked and shoved against him. Her eyes were wild with young fear. The Count chuckled irreverently as he captured her lips with his own. Shocked, Tabby turned slack against him as she wondered why the plot line of 'twilight' was skimming through her mind...A human named Bella Swan fell in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen. Ok. So the story wasn't all that dissimilar to Tabby's, but she was fairly certain that Edward wasn't arrogant or evil...or anywhere near as good looking as Count Dracula.

She sighed as he pulled away from her with a grimace, "You know, Tabitha, by all rights I should kill you-"

"You're going to kill me?" Tabitha asked, annoyed fear sparking in her tone as she looked back into his glacial eyes. He frowned even more. "Against my better judgement, I would never do that."

"No?"

"Never."

"Sooooo...what are we going to do about this, then?" Tabitha asked, relaxing a very little.

"You're going to have to give me your word that you will never tell anyone about this." Well that seemed easy enough; although there was no way that she could keep it a secret from her family. They wouldn't tell anyone; they had as much reason to keep hushed as she did...

"Deal." She said lightly as she offered her hand for a handshake. He took her hand and kissed it preciously, grazing her knuckles with his teeth. She shuddered.

Several minutes later, they were at the front door of the castle. She glanced at him momentarily before she turned and snapped her fingers and appeared back in her octagonal bedroom with the others waiting for her over the trap door.

"How'd it go?" Tim asked lightly as Emily's face contorted into a disturbed frown at what she saw in Tabitha's recent memory.


	3. Getting to know you

"How's it going?" Tabitha asked Emily, not without some trepidation. It had been three weeks since her nocturnal visit to the castle and several fairly disturbing things had happened since then. One; she had started having dreams where everything was so vivid and seemed so real that she was sure they weren't just random things that her imagination had made up-the dreams were much too methodical for that, and two; Vlad had asked Emily out. Of course the latter wasn't entirely a bad thing. Emily adored Vlad and he was a perfect gentleman to her, so Tabitha had no problems there...She just didn't want Emily to get burned by Vlad's spite the way Ingrid seemed to be.

"Oh, it's going great." Emily said with a grin, "Vlad's taking me to see 'New moon' when it comes out...poor sod- he hates the 'twilight' books, partly, he says, because he gets jealous of Edward (why, I don't know), and also because vampires don't go sparkly in the sunlight; they burn. I s'pose he should know, considering that he's a vampire." Emily said with a chuckle. Tabitha walked from the burgundy leather settee over to the kitchen area and swung open the fridge. She grabbed a carton of orange juice and squirted it into a glass and proceeded to drop four or five ice-cubes into it. "Coolness." Tabby said, genuinely happy for Emily but also slightly wary...

"I think I've worked out why Faye and I couldn't get him with our witch powers." Emily called, twisting awkwardly so that she was facing Tabitha over the back of the sofa. "Go on." Tabby said absently as she sipped her drink. "Faye can't seem to get any of the Vampires. Selene said that it was probably because their decisions are so...twisted-don't ask me-but apparently our powers can't work on our soul mates either. I can read the Count's mind, yuck! You feature a lot. Slut!" she said with a teasing smile, "So I guess that means our relationship; Vlad and mine, I mean, is going to have possibilities..." whatever else was said went past Tabitha's ears... 'Our powers can't work on our soul mates'. In one way, that was a good thing. There was no way that a witch could kill his or her lover in a fit of temper and regret it later, on the other hand, that could only mean that the Count was Tabitha's...No! There was no way!

"Tabitha!"

Tabby blinked stupidly before apologising for her temporarily short attention span. "Sorry, what did you say, Em?" Emily shook her head in exasperation.

"I said, the Count's been asking after you, he said that if you didn't go up to the castle by this Friday, he was going to come and throw you over his shoulder and carry you off." A warm thrill shot through Tabitha's body at that image before she abruptly shook it off. There was no way that she could have a relationship with the six-hundred-year-old father of her foster sister's boyfriend. That was just a little bit sick. "He wouldn't dare, Em, because he would have to get in here first. And you wouldn't let him in would you, Emily Griffiths?"

"Tabby," Emily said with a disapproving, mumsy look on her face. "I can read your mind, remember? I know what he is to you-"

"Don't tell anyone, Em." Tabby said in a pleading voice. The last thing her family needed to know was that their sixteen-year-old witchkin wanted to gobble up Dracula-_the _Dracula. "I won't" Emily assured her quietly, "But I think you'll want to tell Selene, Greg and Tim about it before they get the wedding invitations." She finished with a smirk. Tabitha groaned.

"Faye knows?" Emily nodded, her stylishly short, straight, mousy-brown hair bobbing about her ears... "Hold on! Wedding? I thought Faye couldn't get vampires' futures-"

"Yeah, so she looked for yours instead."

"Bugger!"

***

"Katarina."

"We're having a baby, Vlad."

"Yes, Kitten."

"Victor." Her voice said with wonder.

Katarina looked up into her lover's face as he lay over her beside a blazing fire. Dracula. The face was that of a younger Count but it was him. His cold hands roved over her body, committing every inch of flesh to memory. His lips enveloped hers in a soft, tender caress. I love this man! Every fibre of her being screamed it.

"I love you, Kitten. You know that, don't you?" His breathy, velvety voice was tinged with a note of urgency.

"Yes, Vlad. I know." But tears still clung to her lashes as she couldn't stop the notion that he would turn her away when her belly was distended with their child.

***

Tabitha woke up in tears and shivering in her own sweat. She rubbed furiously at her eyes. "Who the hell is Katarina? God! Why are you sending me these stupid dreams?" she demanded with a whimper. She curled herself into the foetal position, doing her best not to fall asleep again. She grabbed her IPod off her bedside table, jammed the earphones into her ears and continued to weep as she listened to Avril Lavigne's 'when you're gone'.

Unbeknownst to the poor girl, The Count stood outside of one of the eight open-curtained windows with tears running down his cheeks as he put the memories into her dreams. It was cruel to do it to her. He didn't revel in causing _her_ pain...but it was the only way that she would remember what they had. It was the only way that she wouldn't reject him. He couldn't condone the idea of his Tabitha growing up, marrying some other man and laying in his arms when she told him that she was having his baby... Why the hell should I care? The Count thought viciously, I'm evil. I don't need anyone's love. I told Magda to never lighten my doorway again-if I don't need her, why do I need this...beautiful girl? He shook his head. What does it matter? He swung up his cape and launched himself in the air to find a nice, juicy lamb...

***

"Emily you know he's going to dump you soon, don't you? I mean, why would the sex-bomb of the town want to stay with you longer than it takes to get into your knickers?" Delilah was at it again, belittling anyone who wasn't a chavvy whore or didn't kiss her feet in adoration.

"Because the 'sex-bomb of the town' wants to go out with someone who doesn't continually plaster make-up onto her sweaty face to cover up her bad acne, Lila" Vlad muttered as her appeared behind Delilah's elbow. Delilah and her gang had cornered Emily so that she shrank back against the lockers.

Tabby had heard the catty exchange just as she had come out of Mr Van Helsing's classroom, just down the hall. Tabitha smiled wickedly, praying that Delilah would do or say something stupid to the Regent grand high Vampire. Delilah was a super-bitch of the highest degree, who needed to be set down a peg or two.

"Emily, make sure you have a pack of tissues. I'd hate to see your mascara run when he dumps you like the ugly slut you are-woof!" Tabitha couldn't be bothered to wait for Vlad to do something. Delilah was a bitch...so now she could act like one. "Woof, woof. Ruff, ruff, ruff!" Delilah had started panting like a puppy. Tabby waited several minutes whilst she watched Delilah chase her tail in the bright yellow corridor. Tabby also noted the satisfied smirk that curled onto Vlad's lips as he squeezed Emily's hand. Suddenly the humiliated girl stopped running around and stopped panting and barking-it was probably prudent to stop short of letting her cock her leg in the corridor; the entire school didn't need to go blind.

"OMG! Delilah, you are such a freak!"

"Yeah!"

"Oh, my God!"

"You ain't coming to my party." Tabitha smiled as the last of Delilah's cronies turned their backs on her. She almost felt sorry for her as Delilah collapsed in a heap of tears. Emily pulled Vlad over to Tabitha, who was standing just outside of the woodwork room. Emily's look was thunderous. Suddenly Gregori, Timothy and Faye walked through the door all wearing bright smiles. "Tab, Tab, Tab. You didn't need to kill the poor girl." Faye smirked with an evil gleam in her emerald green eyes.

"Hey, guys! Have you heard what just happened?" Robin said excitedly as he stumbled through the door. He looked down at Delilah's shuddering body before turning to them with an expression that crossed between awe and blatant terror. "You lot didn't do that did you?" he rasped as his eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"No, actually. I owe Tabitha for this one." Vlad laughed cruelly before Emily elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Tabitha Drake. That was unnecessary-" Emily hissed as she glared daggers at Faye and the others as she read their less-than-compassionate thoughts about Delilah.

"No it wasn't." Vlad interjected.

"It wouldn't have had to happen if you had done something about it in the first place. You're a vampire prince regent for God's sake!" Tabitha spat in Vlad's direction.

"Tabby!" Emily said plaintively, begging Tabitha to leave Vlad out of this. Tabby's anger exploded. "No! Emily. What did you expect me to do? Just stand there and let you take that kind of abuse?"

"Yes."

Tabitha swore foully before she whirled around and walked off in disgust. Before she could yank open the door, Vlad cut her off. His eyes, so much like his sire's, blazed with a cool fire. "When are you coming up to the Castle?" he hissed below anyone's hearing level but Tabitha's. "Dad explained everything to me, right down to the dreams you've been having."

"Be kind, rewind." Tabitha said quietly as the hairs on her nape stood to attention.

"This is between you and him." Vlad said meaningfully.

"Yeah. Whatever." Tabby muttered as she shoved against the door as she stormed off.

"Don't worry, luvvie. It's just that time of the month." Tim said gaily as he leered at Robin's crimson face.

***

"Renfield, I said not to let any visitors in-" The Count wasn't fit company for anyone in his present mood. If it was that interminable Brannaugh woman again...

"I'm sorry, Master. Truly. But she said 'he demanded to see me so he can bloody-well see me now'-" before the grovelling rodent could finish his sentence, Tabitha appeared, irate, in the doorway of Count Dracula's study. Without warning, his black mood was banished...He'd still have to punish Renfield for letting her in, though...

"Ah, my little Tabby cat-"

"Don't be charming and gentlemanly when we both know that's not the real you." She said with cool civility. The Count didn't hear a word that she had said, he was far too happy-he was grinning like an imbecile. It was good to have her back, he thought. "Maybe. But I'd like to be that way for you." He said softly, forgetting the fact that Renfield was still in the room. Tabitha grimaced as her heart wrenched in her chest at the achingly sweet declaration that was completely ruining her angry speech. She sighed in vague annoyance...there were times when it felt good to be furious.

"I'm sorry for being so snappy. I've just..." she made some vague hand gestures, not looking the Count in the eyes. The Count inclined his head to tell Renfield to leave. When the fool merely looked at him with a confused expression, the Count rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Go away, you pestilent...polar bear" he snarled. Suddenly catching his master's meaning, Renfield scurried out of the study as quickly as his mortal feet would allow.

"I came to ask about the dreams. Vlad indicated that you knew about them." The Count grimaced. He'd been expecting this for weeks but he hadn't actually planned his explanation...

"Ah, yes." He murmured. Tabitha almost groaned in appreciation. She could stand there and listen to his voice all day and not get bored. "I knew a girl once, about five hundred years ago. She was about your age and I loved her very much. She was going to give birth to my son."

"Victor." Tabitha breathed, well acquainted with the story; she had seen it so many times in her dreams. The Count winced as if she had just slapped him.

"Yes. But she died six months into the pregnancy." Tabitha didn't remember that in her dreams at all. She had only dreamt of their first night and their first kiss and all the times that they had lain in each other's arms. "How did she die?" she asked quietly, well aware that this retelling was causing him pain.

"My child was cut out of her stomach and staked to the ground. She was kept alive by an old mage named Anna before Anna had her burnt at the stake." His throat had grown tight with impotent fury.

"I heard that the Mages were eradicated about three hundred years ago-"

"Yes."He chuckled darkly, his eyes dark and mirthless, "that was me, with the blessing of the Witchblood; the witching council, I hunted down each and every Mage and tore them apart."

"Why?" Tabby breathed. "Why would the Witchblood do that? Why did you-"

"I did it for you."The words were out before he could stop them, "I killed them all because they couldn't spare you. The Witchblood were furious. You were the first Witch to have been born in five hundred years-you had a destiny-you _have_ a destiny... You were perfect, Kitten-why did you have to go?" he whimpered before he crumpled into grief. Tabby launched herself away from the doorway to catch the Count as he fell to the floor weeping bitter tears-tears that stabbed at her eyes too. "It's alright. I'm here." She crooned, "just let it all out."

"Magda would call me pathetic for this." He laughed shakily. He loved this girl for exactly this reason. She accepted him with all his faults where Magda never could. Tenderly, Tabitha wrapped her arms about his shoulders and held him to her. "Well Magda can go stuff herself, whoever she is." She said firmly. So this was it. She and Katarina were one and the same. Reincarnation wasn't unheard of in the witching world...it just didn't happen very often.

"I love you, Kitten." he whispered against the vulnerable hollow of her neck.

***

Gregori watched the entire scene in his special 'mirror of lurve'. He grinned with unadulterated bliss as he hugged Faye to him and kissed her fervently. He firmly believed in the 'make love not war' thing and he was over the moon for his brother and sisters.

"How's Tim getting along with Robin?" Faye asked smoothly as she affectionately stroked Gregori's ear. Immediately the scene changed to two lanky, dark haired boys necking it in Tim's bedroom before Tim broke off and growled to seemingly no-one in particular. "Piss off Greg!" Faye and Gregori smirked and left them to it.

"That's my power, baby," Greg murmured to Faye, "the power of lurve."

"Yeah, Ok." Faye laughed, "Don't say that too often 'cause it sounds really purvy. You're an empath, Cupid. Just say that."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I couldn't see your future at all."


	4. Magda, slayers and puppy dogs' tails

"Oh, Bun-buns!" Magda sighed, her beautifully rouged lips pouting dramatically, "Say you'll take me back. Patrick just isn't you-"

"No, he isn't." The Count snorted-of course, he'd heard it all before. On the 14th of August last year, he'd sworn to himself that he would never again be taken in by her dark, seductive eyes, the maddening sway of her feminine hips...it only ever led to heart ache and humiliation anyway, so what was the point? "He's far too stupid to do what I have already done." The Count said darkly.

"What have you done?" Magda simpered as she grabbed the Count's hand into her own. He snatched it back cruelly. "I told you to get out." He murmured simply. Today, his vision was unclouded by his previous infatuation with his _ex-_girlfriend. Girlfriend...thank the anti-Christ that it hadn't been 'wife', he thought as his _ex_ fluttered her eyelashes prettily at him.

"Come now, Bun-buns-"

"Why do you call me that?" The Count asked incredulously, she had insisted on calling him that since the first moment of their farce of a relationship. "It's not affectionate because you have no affection for me, you have never had affection for me-for my wallet, maybe. But never for me...And it's not at all endearing." Alright. So _that_ was an outright lie. At first he had loved it. 'Bun-buns' had been an endearing at first...but not anymore. "I call you that because you are my husband." Magda hissed impatiently as she laid a perfectly manicured hand on her hip. The Count rolled his eyes. Satan! What an idiot he'd been for taking up with this two-bit whore. Once he would have killed to hear those words on her lips...now he wanted them from Tabitha.

"No. I'm not. My heart belongs to another...and so does my wallet. Bye dear." He said with a cruel, twisted smile. He turned away from her and stalked toward his throne. He whirled around and sat upon it gracefully and surveyed his _ex-_girlfriend through bored eyes.

"Fine." She huffed with a wrathful glint in her eyes. She flashed out of the castle. The Count prayed to anyone who would hear him that she would never come back.

***

"Jonno, meet the aluminium spring-powered crossbow four-twenty." Both Van Helsings looked upon the silvery weapon with a vague hunger for vampire dust. Jonathon Van Helsing ran his fingers lightly over the cold metal like an inspector. "The UV bullet launcher is way better." Eric shook his head with a disappointed laugh. "You and your machine guns."

"Dinner, boys!" Mina Van Helsing called from inside the caravan. The Slayers started guiltily.

"Er...yes, Mina. Just a minute-quick! Hide it-she'll go insane."Eric Van Helsing said hurriedly. The Van Helsing males both knew that they were slayers and that there were evil, blood-sucking Vampires in the little town of Stokely...but Mina couldn't find out that they knew-she would only leave again with that estate agent with the convertible mercedes.

"Eric! Jonathon! Your dinners' getting cold!" Mina Van Helsing, a very beautiful woman with reddish-brown and terracotta curls and bright eyes, hung out of the caravan that the Van Helsings shared. "Eric..." she sighed, "I think your hobby is getting a bit out of hand." She grabbed up the shiny, new crossbow from behind the wheel of the caravan. "What hobby?" The senior slayer asked with a guarded twinge in his tone.

"The Stokely battle re-enactment society can deal with swords and spears; they don't need the crossbows and ultraviolet grenades that you boys have stashed everywhere." Mina said.

"Oh, yeah." Eric said with a nervous smile. "You're right." He said with a nod. Thank God she had forgotten about the slaying obsession!

Later that night, the Van Helsing boys were discussing battle strategy in their lair-well...out the back of the caravan...they were still expelled from the slayers guild so their old underground lair was still a definite no-no. "Right, Dad. We can't let those weirdoes hypnotise us again or we'll have to start from scratch...again." The only reason that the Van Helsings had remembered anything about vampires and slaying was the fact that slaying had been bred into them, like lambs bred to be slaughtered. It was all they knew. The Counts a.k.a. the Draculas were still their primary targets and they had begun to keep an eye on that bunch of freaks on St Tabitha's lane.

"Right." Eric agreed fervently, "but let's not be unnecessarily cautious; the first rule of slaying-"

"Protect your family." Jonathon said with a smile as he thought about his new girlfriend...Chloe Brannaugh.

"The second rule of slaying-"

"Always stick to the plan." Damn! Eric had trained his son far too well...

***

Tabitha prodded at the plate of jelly-like...things in a rank orangey-red sauce like they were sausage-shaped UFO's. "Can I ask a silly question?"

"You just did." The Count said with a teasing smile whilst he absently played with Tabitha's cinnamon reddy-brown hair. Tabitha gave him a mild glare that softened as she gazed into the cool blue depths of his eyes-eyes that she could get lost in forever. "What exactly are these...things?" Tabitha asked breathily, just a little bit entranced. The Count grimaced.

"One of Renfield's experiments gone wrong; puppy dog's tails in goat's cheese and rancid tomato sauce." The Count took the fork out of Tabby's hesitant hand, scraped up one of the tails and let it plop back into the thick, jelly-like fluid. "Nice." Tabitha said sardonically, "So, what's the occasion?" She asked, referring to the urgent phone call that the Count had made, telling her that she absolutely had to have dinner with him that evening... "There needs to be a special occasion for me to see you?" The Count asked lightly, offended.

"I didn't say that." Tabitha said as she stabbed at the unappetising plate of...puppy dogs' rear ends. She could just imagine half-a-dozen puppies wandering around without their tails..."Not in so many words." He half-agreed, "but you don't visit me half as often as Robin. And I'm stuck here in this crumbling ruin listening to my son and your sister 'getting it on' as they call it and Robin blathering on about some new website he's found. I think the latest one is '.uk'. It's ridiculous."

"Robin got an 'F' in his mock English exam! He doesn't give a damn about his future, I do. I don't want to be qualified only as a street sweeper. I want to do something with my life...I want to dye my hair bright red, kind of like Faye's-"

"No. I like your hair the way it is and you're a witch anyway so what does it matter? There's no need for you to be so concerned about stupid breather exams and you won't ever have to work if I have anything to say about it-"

"What? So I will just be a 'lady of leisure'? I'll feel so lazy, that's just not me. And even witches have to get mortal jobs...except the High witches and obviously the Witchblood" Tabitha pushed her plate away from her and looked into her hands. "The future is in our hands". That was what Selene constantly told them, usually about the environment-granted but it was still applicable in the case of Tabitha's future.

"As far as I'm concerned, the only 'job' that women should have is looking after their husbands and father's-" Oh! He wasn't going to get away with those sexist views in the twenty-first century- Tabby's lips thinned disapprovingly and her golden-brown eyes flashed in annoyance. "Not anymore, Countie." She said firmly, "Women have to work to get money and independence and men have to look after themselves in this day and age." Why did the girl have to constantly challenge his authority in such matters? He wondered exasperatedly. He rolled his eyes. "Yes and the modern world hasn't declined at all, has it?" he asked, letting annoyed sarcasm corrupt his tone, "All these dens of debauchery and drunkenness...you know it is almost like the quest of the Holy Grail to find a nice innocent to ravish-"

"Ok, one, that is sick. Two, there are plenty-"

"Yes. But they still know how everything works! It was more fun in my day when they had no idea-"

"Only because you get off on other peoples' fear!" Tabitha spat disgustedly.

***

"So...Timothy...that's a nice, traditional name." Tim had been invited to Robin's house for tea. Since he had stepped through the door he had been drowned in Mrs Brannaugh's unnatural joviality as she pottered about the neon yellow and green kitchen. "Yes...My Mum must have thought so." Tim didn't actually remember his mother...and he didn't really want to; he still had the cigarette burns on his chest as mementoes of her 'affection' "you're a disgusting freak!" she would scream at him, "You're not my son!" Timothy looked over the table at Jonathon Van Helsing, who apparently had also been invited to tea. Tim smiled warmly at Robin as he saw little yellow-blond haired Chloe tuck her pale hand in Jonno's dark skinned one.

"Where is your Mum, your real Mum, I mean?" Jonno asked, seemingly out of polite interest- Tim knew better. Emily had warned him that the Van Helsing's were keeping an eye on 'the freaks on St Tabitha's lane' so he should keep all the witchy-kind-of information to himself. "My mother got arrested for child abuse-she died about a year ago in prison." Tim murmured uncaringly.

"Oh, how terrible!" Mrs Brannaugh exclaimed. She laid a soft, sympathetic hand on his arm...it helped actually...almost like a real mother's hand

"It's ok, now." Tim said with a small smile, "I've got Selene and the others, so it's all good." Robin squeezed his hand under the table.

"Tabitha and Emily spend a lot of time up at the castle." Chloe said-and despite how it sounded-prying-Timothy could sense that her intentions were purely innocent. "Yeah, the Counts are good people. Tabby and Em like them a lot." Tim said as he looked into Chloe's bright, intelligent eyes.

"Do they?" Jonathon said, aggressiveness inching into his voice, "I mean, I don't really know the Counts very well...but I've noticed that Tabitha spends_ a_ _lot _of time particularly with Mr Count." He said suggestively...he knew them very well, Timothy knew. He knew about the Dracula's- the fact that they were vampires-he planned to go to the Castle and slay the lot of them tomorrow night. Timothy knew all Jonathon's intentions.

"Well Tabitha is a very intelligent, amiable girl and Mr Count doesn't get out much. It's very kind of her to visit him..." Mrs Brannaugh said doubtfully. It looked bad, but she was sixteen so it wasn't illegal. Tim smiled warmly and soothingly at Mrs Brannaugh. "It's more of a kindness to Tabitha. She wants to be an author and she wants to include Transylvania as a setting in one of her books-you know, it's the birthplace of Vampires et cetera. And I think Mr Count likes to talk about his homeland." Mrs Brannaugh brightened immediately; this explanation was so much more plausible and nicer...Tim grimaced inside. It was a downright lie-Jonathon's vague suggestion was closer to the truth...

"Is your carbonara alright, Tim?" Mrs Brannaugh enquired politely in her bubbly welsh accent. The welsh accent was so innocent and fey... you couldn't have a welsh Bond villain because saying 'So, Mr Bond. We meet again...and for the last time' in a welsh accent would simply be laughable, whereas the accent would be perfect if you were saying 'ooh, look! A bumble bee!'

"Yes, Mrs Brannaugh, it's lovely." Tim said, and he meant it-he could understand why Mr Brannaugh and the twins; Ian and Paul, couldn't be bothered to talk and instead concentrated on shoving the cheesy pasta down their throats.

***

Eric Van Helsing was wheezing like an asthmatic. He had sprinted for two miles. He still had more to go if he wanted to survive tonight. He'd cornered a vampire in the woods who was bent over a dead hiker. It had turned out to be Magda; an insanely beautiful vampiress and mistress to Count Dracula. The slayer couldn't run anymore. He turned to look for any signs of Magda.

Damn! Shit! Bugger!

She was right behind him.

Her pale face was alight with fury-who was he to interrupt her dinner!? Then again, slayers always did taste better than other breathers so it didn't matter... She picked him up by the throat and threw him to the ground viciously. "Stupid, Breather!" Magda hissed nastily. "I'm faster than you, stronger than you and much smarter, obviously" Eric Van Helsing lay on the ground gasping for breath. 'Never go hunting on a full stomach'- that was the first rule of slaying-Why had he ignored it!?

"Never underestimate mortal ingenuity." Jonathon appeared behind Magda with a wink for his dad and a grim 'you're about to turn into dust' smile for Magda. He aimed the machine gun in his hands that contained UV bullets at Magda's heart. "Oh, please." Magda pouted as she rolled her gorgeous eyes, "I'll spare the both of you if you can...help me kill the Count."

"Or I could just shoot you." Jonathon said dryly. He wasn't in the mood for mind games after making small talk with that freak Tim at dinner.

"Go ahead." Magda murmured tauntingly, "but don't you want a chance to kill the grand high vampire as well. With my...husband out the way you have free reign."

"Yes, Jonno! This is the chance that we've been waiting for!" the senior Van Helsing yelled as he scrambled to his feet. He straightened his battered old trench coat and smiled evilly. "We'll do it." He said to Magda. Magda smiled back coldly.

"You don't mind killing a cheating werewolf afterward, do you?"

***

"Dad I'm not sure about this." Vlad said.

"Why not? It's legal." The Count said innocently as he lay in his coffin.

"Barely." Vlad muttered from the Count's coffin-side, "Tabby being pregnant at sixteen was great in the sixteenth century but this is the twenty first century...it's kind of discouraged. Oh, God!-"

"Language!" The Count barked. He hated it when his precious son and heir used such disgusting profanities.

"Sorry. But I can see you on the Jeremy Kyle show- 'I'm a six-hundred-year-old vampire and I got my sixteen-year-old witch girlfriend pregnant and now she hates me'." Vlad rolled his eyes; he really could see that and he would pay good money to see his Dad get screamed at by Jeremy Kyle 'you're disgusting! I hate men like you!'

"Go on, Daddy. I want to see that." Ingrid smirked from the doorway to the Count's private crypt.

"Oh, shut up Ingrid!" The Count spat. Suddenly, he wasn't in a hurry to bed Tabitha if this taunting was the result. He clicked his fingers sharply and the lid came down onto Vlad's fingers. "Shit! Dad!" Vlad howled.

"Aw. Does little Vladarella have a boo-boo?"Ingrid sneered, "The Demon Pantheon should have chosen someone tougher than you, little brother."

"Ingrid?"

"What?"

"If you could get onto your knees and beg forgiveness, I would bring Will back for you." Vlad said with the typical Dracula charm.

"Really?" a small glimmer of hope appeared in Ingrid's startling blue eyes.

"No." Vlad sneered with an evil grin.

***


	5. I hit, you fall I kill, you die

Tabitha turned and faced the Count. Black outrage coiled into a fiery knot inside her gut. "You Bastard!" she screamed. Her hand closed over one of Selene's priceless Ming dynasty vases before she hurled it forcefully at him. He dodged it easily. He grabbed her hand and forced her to sit down, all with a bored expression. Tabitha saw red immediately. "You sadist, blockheaded, moronic retard! How dare you call my family 'peasants'?"

It was amazing. They had only been sat in the sitting room on the burgundy leather sofa. He had been about to kiss her-thoroughly-when he had said the one thing that would really rile her; "For a family of peasants you really do have good taste." She had immediately slapped him-Hard! The Count had no idea that Tabitha could ever get so enraged.

"The comment was meant to be complementary-Calm down! It just slipped out-what do you want me to say?" Tabitha had kicked him hard in the shin and bit at the hand on her wrist.

"I want you to get out. I swear to God! I will never speak to you again-that is if you survive being fed to the Venus cruncher." She spat.

"Lucifer! For a girl, you have an overly developed sense of pride-"

"Shut up and get off-"

The Count panicked. He hadn't been this panicked since his family had been chased out by an angry, torch wielding peasant mob-He pressed his lips to hers and did his best to distract her-she could do some very real damage, even without her Witch powers.

Tabitha's insides melted. This was very, very good-"No! No! He called my family peasants! Don't kiss him back, you idiot!" her inner voice screamed in outrage. Tabitha wanted to shove him away so much but her arms weren't working today; they could only twine around his cold, alluring neck. His hands travelled around to her back and began to slide under her top-No! You're right, inner voice. Can't let him do this, Tabitha thought. She unwound her arms from his neck and took his hands out of the back of her black top. Her lips broke away from his. She stood back, letting her eyes take in the vaguely triumphant gleam in his eyes and the wetness of his incredibly delicious lips-jeez he was a fantastic kisser!

"You don't want me out." He murmured with a happy smile. Tabitha smiled back amiably but still a little bit pissed off. She held up three fingers. "These are my priorities." She explained, "First, to my family. Second, to my friends...And third, to you." The Count looked at her with baleful eyes.

"I feel so loved." He said dryly, "I'm only at the bottom of your list of priorities-"

"I'm telling you, Countie, that I won't let you get away with insulting my family or my friends." The Count measured that in his head...Un-life was so unfair.

"What if they insult me first?"

"Then you have free reign, verbally."

"Perfect. Now, can I kiss you again?" The Count said with a wicked grin as he reached for Tabby. She giggled playfully. "Yep. But you've got to catch me first." She snapped her fingers and disappeared from the leather sofa. Oh, yes! The Count thought, this is very fun! "Hi, Dad." Vlad said brightly as he appeared behind the Count. The Count cursed the precious boy-it was really awkward, wooing a girl the same age as his son, especially when said son was in the house. Tabitha appeared at the top of a mahogany staircase. "Vlad, get lost!" she said irritably.

"Sorry, sister-in-law slash step-mum." He smirked raising his eyebrows knowingly at his father, "Tim says that Mummy's in town and trying to kill us...along with the Van Helsings." Tabitha sobered instantly.

"Magda?" The Count and his son nodded in unison. Tabby let out a slow breath.

Faye and Emily appeared on either side of her. The Count rolled his eyes. "Do we have no privacy?" He asked. Faye shrugged nonchalantly.

"Not really."

"I swear, if you make a porno on us, Faye, I will kill you." Tabitha said in a half-hearted attempt at humour-just to lighten the situation in some way. "We're not _that_ interested, Cat." Emily said with a concerned frown.

"Your wedding's a bit hazy, Tab." Faye murmured, her green eyes slightly dazed.

"Hi, Kids." A heavy Caribbean accent floated through the doorway. Selene's dark skinned from popped into the kitchen adjacent to the sitting room and the stairs. She dumped a load of TESCO's carrier bags onto the granite counter. She looked up when no-one answered her. "I had a nice day, thanks. Got lots of shopping done. I'm fine thanks and you? Oh, that's nice."

"Countie's ex wants to kill him." Emily said as she skipped down the stairs. She gave Vlad a quick kiss before she went to help Selene unpack the normal way.

"Oh, good. He can stop perving on Tabitha, then." Selene replied coolly.

"What is 'perving' meant to mean?" The Count asked Vlad quietly. Vlad merely shook his head and smirked. His dad was so out of touch.

***

Later that night at the castle, Emily had demanded that the Dracula's put a plan of action into place. Vlad and his father had insisted that there was no point because there was nothing at all to worry about.

"Aren't you at all worried?" Emily asked the Count; purely out of courtesy-of course she already knew the answer.

"Why would I be? She's only a woman-"

"She's teamed up with the slayers." Those words hung in the air like dead men from nooses. Vlad and the Count merely looked at her blankly. "So?" Vlad asked, as if it made no difference whatsoever, "It's only Van Helstink. He's so bad at slaying, he actually need's a day job to pay off the mortgage on his caravan." Emily sighed. Vlad was as arrogant and harsh as his sire some days, but Emily wouldn't swap with Tabitha or anyone else for all the money in the world.

"Em, don't worry about it." Vlad said soothingly, "I'll just find her and get her executed, it's fine." Then again, Emily would love to swap him for a less morbid Vlad sometimes. "Before I become exceedingly envious of my son, I'm going out hunting." The Count said with more than a hint of boredom in his breathy tone. "You just ate" Vlad noted dryly.

"Who said I was hunting for food?" The Count retorted with a boyish grin that reminded Emily so much of Vlad. "Tell Tabitha not to let you anywhere near sheep-God knows what freaky habits you've picked up living in Wales."

***

"I think we should go for the element of surprise." Jonathon murmured.

"Really?" Magda said in mock awe. "I never would have guessed!" Jonathon gritted his teeth. A tick worked in his jaw-he could feel it! He still wasn't sure about working with a vampiress but his Dad had been very insistent and very persuasive-No more Count Dracula. No more Grand High Vampire...and a new Wii. So they were sat in the most expensive nightclub in town plotting to kill the most famous Vampire in history.

"This might be a bit difficult for you breathers." Magda jeered coolly.

"So what do you suggest?" Jonathon snarled. His father laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Easy, son." He murmured soothingly. It really didn't work. Jonathon hated this...it just seemed like...a betrayal of everything that they stood for. "I _suggest _that I walk in, tell him that I'll do anything to take him back-distract him. You shoot him with that impressive piece of machinery that you just_ yearn_ to use on me and I'll leave you to find the rest of my disloyal family."

It actually seemed like a very good plan-wait! There was something missing, Jonno was sure of it... "What about those weirdoes? They're not normal, I swear-"

"_Jonno!_" Eric hissed plaintively. "Don't make things unnecessarily complicated."

"I'll leave you to deal with whoever gets in our way."Magda smiled at them coldly before she flitted out of sight. Jonathon breathed a wary sigh of relief. "Tomorrow, then." He breathed.

Eric Van Helsing cursed soundly. Jonathon looked to see what the matter was- "She's bloody left us with the bill!" Eric hissed.

***

"Tonight?" The Count muttered groggily, "you woke me up for this. Couldn't it have waited, Kitten?" Tabitha stared at the Count with a mix of incredulity and shock. "I came all the way up here to tell you that you could potentially die tonight and all you can do is lay there in your posh coffin and whine that I woke you up-" Tabitha was just starting to get into her rant when he interrupted her.

"It's not as if you walked the entire way!" He said, referring to Tabby's fascinating ability to travel outside the boundaries of time and space-'the dead travel fast' they said in Transylvania. Tabitha took that concept to an entirely new, instantaneous level.

"Hush, you...perverse so and so!" She retorted-it was way too early in the morning, ok it was eleven o'clock but she had turned into a real night owl in the past couple of months, "I'm sorry I woke you up for such an unimportant issue as your potential destruction."

"You make it sound so dramatic." He said with a teasing smile. He took the hand that was gripped onto the rim of his black, velvet lined coffin. "I would have appreciated it better if you had woken me to tell me that you'd like to join me in my slumber." He said sweetly. Tabitha raised her eyebrows with a slight smile of her own. The candles in the private crypt flickered as the Count was momentarily dazzled- she was beautiful! "You just don't give up, do you?" She said.

"I try not to." He said cheekily, "I promise I won't sully you today." This was a little bit tempting, Tabitha thought. The idea of a less chaste alternative sent chills scurrying over her flesh and warmed her insides. This man was like chocolate-far too moreish for any woman's good.

"Is there enough room?"

***

"So this is the little whore that has replaced me." Magda spat nastily, "she's so plain." She simpered. The Count sat regally on his throne. His mouth twisted in anger at her scathing remark. Tabitha stood protectively in front of him. There was no way in hell that anyone was going to get to him. Ingrid had been packed off to her maternal grandparents. Vlad was tracking down the Van Helsings. Greg and Tim were protecting Emily and Faye. It was all going according to plan...

So far.

"Well we can't all have botoxed lips and plastic boobs." Tabitha retorted.

"I wasn't speaking to you, peasant!" The Count winced...so that was how it felt to have loved ones called 'peasant'. His lip curled.

"Don't insult her." He said in a deadly quiet...calm voice. Magda blinked, stunned for a second. He was usually so filled with impotent rage-always shouting and screaming at the world. "I will not tolerate it." The Count said.

The air was still. Thick with waiting.

***

The pair of slayers were silent. They crept along the catacombs and passages expertly. Between the new crossbow and the UV machine gun, they had decided on the gun. Jonathon carried it slung over his shoulder. His father followed behind him. He beamed with pride at his son. His first proper slaying! They halted at their usual spy hole. "This'll do."Jonathon murmured-more to himself than his inept father. He quickly and professionally set up the sniper's shooting equipment. His father handed him the UV bullets.

***

"I can't believe after all we've been through-"

"_We!?" _the Count spluttered in amazement at Magda's audacity, "I brought up my children. I struggled through the Wall Street crash. I protected my children from an angry, torch wielding peasant mob-the only thing you've been through is men!" Tabitha bit back a smile. He honestly had no idea how good he was. He had protected his children and brought them up as best-or worst he could. What more could anyone ask of a father? Another reason to protect him was added to Tabitha's list.

***

"Aiming..." Jonathon whispered as he focused on the Count's figure, lounged back on his throne. Jonathon bit his tongue in concentration. He heard some shuffling behind him. "Dad!" he hissed reprimandingly. He glanced behind him. Instead of seeing his father with a rueful look across his face he saw Vlad standing over his unconscious body.

"Shit!"

***

Magda glanced around the hall quickly. He should be dust by now! She thought anxiously. "Hi, Mum!" Vlad said brightly, holding two limp bodies by their collars. He thrust them down at his feet. He glared blackly at his mother. "You know the law, Mum." He murmured, "You know that it is illegal to even contemplate the death of a fellow Vampire."

"Sorry, darling." She darted-stake in hand-at the Count.

Tabitha suddenly, instinctively disintegrated the woman before she could get to the Count.

It was quick.

Easy.

Jesus Christ! Tabby blinked back tears. She had just killed someone. She had just ended someone's semblance of a life.

"Tabitha?" The Count whispered her name with a mixture of awe, love and concern. What do I do? He wondered. Normally he would congratulate someone on their first kill. He knew that wasn't appropriate in this case. Vlad felt almost the same sense of ignorance. He had no loyalty to his mother...What was the problem?

"I need to go home." Tabitha said. She sniffed slightly. A large chunk was ripped out of her soul. How did Soldiers stand this? Killing made a person dirty, unclean-at least that was how she felt. Disgusting. Abomination. She walked out of the main hall. She stalked out of the door. She slammed into a hard, relentless form. "Tabitha, don't run away." Tabby looked up into the Count's pale, moonlit face.

"I've just killed someone." She said. Did it really need explaining?

"Yes...I do-did it all the time." He replied.

"That's different. We have different ways of...it's unacceptable to kill someone in our culture. You come from a time and a place where that can happen and you don't even blink." The Count rolled his eyes. She was talking in riddles again. He pulled her close and enfolded her in his arms. They stood there in the night air. She cried.

"You know, I'd do it again." Tabby said, "Every day of the week and twice on Sunday." He had to shut her up before her carried her back inside and held her far more intimately. He laid a possessive branding of a kiss onto her lips. There was no going back-with Magda gone there was no reason why they couldn't start again... 


	6. Happy Birthday

"Happy birthday, Tabitha." The Count whispered as the tiny lines of experience at the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly in a vague hint of a smile.

"Thanks." Tabby whispered back with a blissful smile. She was officially eighteen today-the dawn notwithstanding. They both lay prone on her wooden four-poster bed in her gothic, octagonal room. The Count shifted and got off the bed gracefully. He strode over to his cape that lay on the dark green velvet chaise longue on the other side of the room. Tabitha couldn't help but stare at his back...He had the nicest bum ever to grace an Earthbound creature...

He retrieved a box from a pocket in the luxurious, red silk lining in his leather cape. He contemplated it for a moment; Tabitha's coming-of-age present had occupied his thoughts for months. The Count flitted back onto the bed and handed her the small, ancient, wooden box carefully. Tabby gave him a questioning glance. "Open it." He whispered. Tabitha lifted the intricate latch. She hesitantly unfolded the red velvet inside. She gave a silent gasp. "Oh my God!" she whispered hoarsely. She was stunned. Tabby delicately fingered the emerald green amulet. "This is-"

"Yes." The Count said with a sage nod, "It's yours. It has always been yours. I wish you to have it... Again"

"You gave it to her that first night-"

"I gave it to _you." _He said impatiently, his frosty blue eyes tight. She was Katarina-Tabitha. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind. Tabitha felt his certainty through the intimate space between them and felt a warm shooting of desire and gratification through her body. "I know. I just don't remember that life like it's _my_ life, that's all. That's the thing with reincarnation; you don't get to remember any of it that way." She laughed appeasingly.

"Hmm." The Count, "I just hope that today meets all your expectations-" he broke off and looked away guiltily.

"What's up?" Tabby asked; her interest was piqued.

"Nothing." He said defensively in a way that made Tabitha really excited. Surprise party-it had to be. After last year's fiasco the Count had insisted that this year, she wouldn't expect it and it was going to be absolutely perfect; meaning that neither Gregori nor Tim were allowed anywhere near the planning aspect of the party. Tabitha certainly wasn't going to deny him the pleasure of pleasing her and supposedly surprising her at the same time-she loved to please him far too much. "Ok." She murmured with an anticipant grin.

***

"Hi, Tabs!" Will called jovially. Ever since his resurrection a week after Magda's death, Will had been very attentive and nice to Tabitha, simply because he owed her-_Big time_. Tabitha had always had to bite back her hysterical laughter as the Count glared at the 'half-fang' whenever the boy spoke to her and she had to do so again. "Hiya, Will!" She replied, earning her a burning glower from both the Count and Ingrid. Ah! Jealousy could be insanely hilarious to watch. "Emily's with Vlad-no prizes for guessing what they're doing- and Greg's helping me with...nothing." Will broke off after being on the receiving end of one of Ingrid's painful elbow-jabs.

The Count grabbed Will's elbow and dragged him to the other side of the hall "I thought Vlad was meant to be helping Renfield with the cake." The Count hissed quietly as he glanced anxiously at Tabitha, hoping against hope that she didn't have the sensitive hearing that vampires and werewolves did.

"Well yeah...but then Ems turned up...then it kind of went downhill from there-" Will explained in a strained hiss.

"You've left Renfield alone with the cake!?" If the Count hadn't been dead already, he'd have died from a combined heart-attack and aneurism. His alabaster brow was furrowed with desperate fear of what monstrosity of a cake Renfield would create...he could remember the time they had run out of sugar on Vlad's thirteenth birthday-he shuddered. Even a vampire such as he, who had no interest whatsoever in 'baking' knew that _pepper_ was not an ingredient in a Victoria Sponge.

"Please. Do I look that stupid? I called that Brannaugh woman. The little breather brat said she was good with cake...we don't have to eat it do we?" Will asked with a repulsed frown. Tabitha struggled not to laugh fondly. The dialogue was done all in 'hushed whispers'...that were actually very loud on Will's part. "It's ok to laugh, you know." Ingrid muttered sardonically from beside Tabby, "They're both idiots...You know about the party don't you?" Ingrid and Tabitha had gotten on rather well since Tabby had brought Will back from the void of the lost, although they were both still wary of each other; Ingrid, because of Tabitha's superior power, and Tabby, because of Ingrid's zealous belief in her evilness.

"Yeah, I know." Tabby replied just as the bubbly Mrs Brannaugh burst through the doorway that led to the kitchen. "Tabitha! Happy birthday! Ooh, eighteen already. It doesn't seem all that long ago that you first came to Stokely." Tabitha smiled at Mrs Brannaugh's fussing... "Ooh, but I've got to stop. You've got things to do and so have the rest of you. What are you doing, Robin? Stop eating all the Smarties"

The Count took Tabby's hand gently and led her away from the kerfuffle, down to the crypt. "What are we doing?" she asked, "What are _they _doing?" she savoured the feel of his hard, long fingers caressing hers.

"We are going to play chess." He said, "And they are...redecorating." he finished lamely.

"Redecorating?" Tabitha prodded with a teasing smile.

"Well...it seemed like a good day for...redecoration." For the 'king of liars' and 'the prince of darkness'...he was invariably a crap liar.

"Ok, I'll let that go." Tabitha said teasingly, "So you're going to show me your amazing prowess in the game of chess." She added with a melodramatic flourish.

"I am." He said with an arrogant smile as he opened the door with a click of his fingers. The cobwebbed candles-as per usual-flickered on when the pair entered the room. Tabitha silently said some little words of power and the priceless chess board that Selene had given him for his birthday was laid out on a table. The Count had the little black onyx pieces and Tabitha had the amethyst and silver ones. Tabitha sat down and moved a pawn two places forward. The Count bit his lip calculatingly and moved his pawn...

Before even two minutes had passed, the Count had lost. "I let you win." He muttered as he flicked over his black, surrounded king in surrender. "Yeah, right! You are atrocious at cheating, by the way, Countie" Tabitha said with a wicked grin as she had the precious chessboard packed away neatly.

"If it pleases you, I could show you that I am better at other things." He suggested provocatively, raking her with a hungry stare. Tabitha felt that all too familiar shooting thrill course violently through her veins again. Her breathing began to get heavier, more anticipant and calculating-how much time did they have? How long would it take to rip off all his clothes? How long could they stay unfound whilst they...?

The Count didn't dare blink. He would give anything to not miss a single moment of this. He smelled her clean, apple scent and awakening need. His stomach somersaulted like a young naive boy's, not like the cynical, worldly vampire's. He reached out and caressed her throat lightly with the velvety pads of his cold fingers.

Tabitha cocked her head invitingly to the side to give him better access to her flesh. "He can do whatever he wants to." her inner voice murmured softly to her, "Just let him." Immediately, he flitted around to her and slammed her to the wall. Tabitha's heart thumped loud and needy in her ears. This was far too good to be real-He trailed his cold lips lightly, erotically over her racing pulse.

It was too much for him-the desiring hunger. He felt his fangs emerge. They sank deep into that sweetly throbbing vessel of blood. Tabitha gasped with the unexpected pleasure of it. Her eyes widened with the headiness of the whole thing. His tongue was rough against her throat, producing excited chills that ran all through her body. Inwardly, the Count grew concerned and slightly panicky-it had been far too long since he had fed on human blood, and even longer since he had 'been' with a woman. Satan! He needed her alive far too much, he couldn't do this to himself...but the potent tang of her blood insisted otherwise on his tongue.

"Stop." Tabitha whimpered as she felt the painful pleasure receding and her consciousness pulling away from her body. Her breathing began to get lower and deeper-dragging. She tried to shove at him desperately but her arms felt heavy and weak. She could feel her heart slow. "Count...you need...to stop." She pressed hoarsely. Tabby clutched at him, doing everything she could not to fall. Suddenly, his coldness was brutally ripped out of her failing arms.

He had been thrown brutally across the room. Selene stood there with the fiercest glower that could ever emanate from anyone's face. Her eyes were black with restrained rage. Her teeth were bared with a mother's ferocious protectiveness. "You couldn't wait until tonight, could you?" She hissed accusingly at him in her strong Caribbean accent. She turned abruptly on Tabitha._ "You_ couldn't wait until tonight? You are still vulnerable, Tabitha! You are still juvenile until ten-o-three tonight. You idiot! Do you know how dangerous that could have been? You couldn't stay a virgin for just a little bit longer?"

"Emily and Vlad have been going at each other like animals. How can you expect us to have it thrown in our faces and not..." Tabitha protested weakly, still feeling her consciousness pull away.

"Vlad hasn't ever tasted human blood. You can't miss what you have never had. You are still human, Tabitha! You-"she pointed at the Count, fury still glazing her eyes. "You can stay away from her until ten-o-three tonight. Capisce? If I so much as catch you looking at her in a way that I don't like-I'll rip you apart piece by piece by piece. Don't think I won't, rodent" Selene strode angry and authoritively over to Tabitha's limp body. She laid her warm hand on Tabby's clammy forehead. Tabitha suddenly felt much brighter and much stronger. "I've replenished your blood supply." Selene whispered, "The others are expecting you, so you'd better go. I need to talk to Count Idiot over there, promise I won't kill him."

Tabitha nodded and got up from her slumped position on the floor. The Count looked at her apologetically as she hurried up to the main hall.

"That hurt, Selene-" he began.

"You nearly killed her." Selene snapped harshly, "for a man who-allegedly- cares so much about her, you are extremely cavalier about her safety."

"I know and I regret it...Why three minutes past ten?" He asked curiously, grabbing a handkerchief from an inside pocket in his jacket.

"Because that was the exact time that she was born." Selene replied stiffly, "that's the exact time that she gets her full powers, and the time that she needs protecting most."

"Why?"

"Because she is destined to be the last and most powerful High Witch." Selene replied before popping out of the small chamber. The Count grimaced. His back really did hurt! But he supposed it was what Tabitha called 'instant karma'-his comeuppance. He rubbed his black silk handkerchief over his face, wiping away her blood.

He got up and flitted into the main hall where the party was taking place only to be met with seven accusing pairs of eyes; Gregori, Timothy, Faye, Emily, Vlad, Selene and Robin. Ingrid and Will were smirking in a corner and Renfield was bringing a large chocolate cake through and the Brannaugh woman was leading a blindfolded Tabitha by the hand. "Can I take it off now?" Tabitha asked expectantly. The Count grinned despite himself as he took her out of Mrs Brannaugh's hands and led her to the chair closest to his at the head of the table. Tabitha smiled and sighed a little as she felt his cool fingers curl around hers. "Not yet." He whispered. Renfield pulled out the chair and Tabitha carefully felt her way and sat in it-after last year where Gregori and Tim had planned her birthday, she had been blindfolded and had missed the chair when she had down...Tabitha swore that her backside ached for two months after the incident...

"Now can I take it off?" The Count chuckled at her young impatience as he slipped the red rag from her eyes.

Tabitha squealed with delight. There was the most humongous triple tiered chocolate cake, smothered in chocolate icing with hundreds of Smarties and chocolate buttons and six black and red candles on each tier. And 'Happy eighteenth birthday' was written in Mrs Brannaugh's careful script on the side in electric blue icing.

She looked up at the wall where "Hapy Burtdai, Tabbihta." Had been written in Renfield's spidery scrawl on a length of sweat-stained paper. She bit back a laugh at Renfield's efforts-he was an idiot but he was rather sweet...in a disgusting kind of way.

A whole stack of cards lay on the polished table beside the gargantuan chocolate cake alongside an innumerable number of presents.

"Thank you." Tabitha said meaningfully to the room at large, "this is awesomeness!" she clapped her hands gleefully. The others came and sat down at the table and started passing down the presents.

"Mine first!" Robin called eagerly as he handed her a small box wrapped in shiny, black wrapping paper. Tabitha tore open the paper immediately to find a plain white box. She carefully opened the white box. She completely missed Vlad and Robin's shared hysterics. A large number of little, square, multicoloured plastic packets spilled into Tabitha's lap. She picked one up and mock-glared at the pair of them.

"Thanks for the condoms, guys." She muttered dryly as the Count shot a chilling glower at the pair of them that they took no notice of whatsoever. "My pleasure, Tabby." Vlad choked between shuddering laughs.

***


	7. The Note and The Prophecy

"Vampire. Your whore will die tonight and I shall take the powers that should rightfully be mine. And with them, I will wreak a vengeance upon you the likes of which makes Satan's minions quiver with dread. She will die tonight, and so shall you." Emmeline looked over her wrathful note carefully. She pressed down the glued newspaper pieces that made up the note.

She remembered her lifetime as the Old Mage; Anna.

Katarina. Tabitha. Whatever her name was, she wouldn't get away again. That power that still ran through that chit's veins would be Emmeline's. All hers. "Do you think I missed anything?" she asked the snowy haired man at her side. Merlin's young, deceivingly innocent face grinned down at his violent daughter. "I think that signing it as 'Anna' should petrify them." He suggested with an indulgent chuckle.

"Good idea, father." Emmeline smiled adorably, superficially up at her Magi father. He alone had survived the massacre that Dracula had wreaked on the Mages-with the blessing of the Witchblood! He would never forget that, nor forgive it. He had Emmeline, now. He had found the essence of Old Anna; the vengeful, malicious, stagnant bitch. He had bottled up her essence. He fucked a whore, got her pregnant and stole away the brat. He had fed the girl Anna's essence. The girl had grown into a young woman and more. He had never been so proud-not even when his wife had borne their son; they were dead now. All gone. Never to even be reincarnated.

He would take everything from Dracula that was taken from him. If Emmeline got a little more power...Well, that was a bonus!

Emmeline grabbed the bottle of nursery PVA glue and cut out an 'A', two 'N's and another 'A' from 'the Sun'. She squirted the viscous PVA over the thin, grey paper, accidentally spilling it over her slight, pale fingers. After she had stuck down the letters, she rubbed her fingers together irritably under 'Daddy's' watchful gaze and peeled the remaining skin-like substance off her fingers. Merlin dried the paper with a light blow and folded it and put it in a manila envelope; labelled. 'To the Bastard who ruined this good Earth with his presence'. He looked at the antique clock on his oak mantelpiece; Quarter to five. That was good. It left them with plenty of time for preparations. He walked out of the room. He lifted the manila envelope into the air. It folded itself into a paper aeroplane and zoomed upward to where the Castle sat, overlooking Stokely in its blatant arrogance...just like its occupants.

***

"Renfield! Get the door!" The lifetime servant of the Dracula's scurried to the door. He snatched up a brown envelope and sniffed it suspiciously. It smelled rank...like soap...eurgh!

"Who is it Renfield?" His master asked from the entrance hall. Renfield turned around. The Count was there, looming over him. A nasty sneer was raked over Renfield by his master. "It's post, Master." Renfield said disgustedly as he handed the Count the envelope.

"To the Bastard who ruined this good Earth with his presence-that's for me, then." The Count murmured with a proud, evil grin. He slipped his long, sharp nails under the flap. He took out the note within.

As he read it-if it could be possible-he paled even further than his usual colouring.

This couldn't be...

Anna couldn't possibly be back...

The idea was ludicrous!

"What is it?" Tabitha poked her head around the doorway to the Main Hall with an irrepressible grin. She was high as a kite-without the drugs, of course. Her blissful smile faded from her features as she took in the Count's carefully masked expression. He stared avidly at the words that were cut out of newspaper clippings. Tabitha zapped herself over to him and looked at the piece of paper that he held. His eyes suddenly burned like Dante's Inferno and the note was screwed up and combusted instantaneously. "Not good, then." Tabitha murmured.

The Count shivered with his roiling fury. Anna was back! How? With great effort, he managed to keep his tone calm when he truly wanted to howl a battle cry and hunt down the idiot that threatened Tabitha's life. "You're staying here, tonight. The others will protect you whilst Vlad and I find the perpetrator of this..." Tabby felt his towering body shake with suppressed rage and shivered at the power that she evidently had over him-not that she ever intended to use to her advantage the way that Magda had done... "Imbecilic...dangerous jest."

It wasn't a joke, jest, jape or quip. No-one was kidding.

"Dad?" Both Vlad and Ingrid suddenly appeared beside them. The Count narrowed his eyes at his spawn and turned away. "It's nothing...Just an upstart breather that has more guts than sense...and I intend to play in them tonight." He murmured with a deadly glint in his glacial eyes as they bored possessively into Tabitha's. A shiver slithered down Tabby's spine and curled into her abdomen.

Vlad let out a low hiss. "Dad, It's five o'clock-"

"What the hell has the time got to do with anything? Can Will and I come?" Ingrid asked hopefully, ever bloodthirsty.

***

Faye, unlike the rest of the family, didn't have scared surprise etched onto her dark, fierce features. She merely nodded, as if she had been expecting this for_ quite_ some time.

"Half past nine, will the enraged phantom strike. Like blood spilt across snow, or rock, or flame. Quarter to ten, will she, her vengeance, like. She will- The grey Mage-steal her destined fame. How wilt the last High Witch untie her knots? The unworthy demon may be ordained, Self-sacrifice will decide his love's lot, For should she die, again he will be maimed. For eternity, will the self righteous- Be stuffed underground, forever to damn. And the eternally damned be righteous, When dragons protect the wild virgin lamb. Three minutes past the twenty-second hour, Will decide which is worthy of such high power."

Both the Count and Tabitha stared at Faye. Her eyes were a milky white. Her voice was a booming croak; a true oracle's voice. Again her eyes returned to their normal state. She screwed her emerald eyes shut and swayed a bit, as if from head-rush. Gregori rushed to her side and took her arm and led her to a seat. "Well that was an interesting bit of iambic pentameter." Timothy mumbled grimly.

Mrs Brannaugh looked completely bewildered. "She's a very good actress." She whispered dubiously, "I have shivers running all down my spine." She added with a nervous laugh. She didn't want to believe what she had just heard. There was some innocent, normal explanation somewhere about this...

"What time is it, now?" Emily asked in a small voice.

"Twenty to seven." Vlad replied blandly as he held up the plastic Scooby-Doo watch on Emily's wrist, to see the time, "We have a little bit of time... _if_ this is the real deal." After a moment's silence he nudged Robin in the chest, "I reckon you should take your mum home, Robin." He warned, " And if I were you, I'd stay home tonight as well." Robin nodded his assent and cleared his throat.

"Mum? What time did Dad say he was going to be home? I swear he said he'd be home by seven-"

Mrs Brannaugh's warm, motherly eyes widened in shocked surprise. "Really? I'm sure he said that he'd be home at about eleven-"

"No!" Robin almost yelled, "I'm definitely sure that he said seven, Mum. You can ground me if I'm wrong-"

"Oh, but Robin, I must clear up the kitchen-"

"Renfield can do that, my dear, Elizabeth." The Count supplied with a dazzling smile. Mrs Brannaugh's breathing skipped slightly and Tabitha's gut twisted with a slight pang of unwarranted jealousy. "Oh, but I wouldn't want to put upon him-"

"Nonsense! That's what we pay him for-" The Count said with a nonchalant wave of his hand whilst Renfield protested 'quietly' in the Count's ear, "but Master, you don't pay me."

"Shut up, Renfield." The Count muttered with a strained hiss, "Your husband will be home soon, if I'm not mistaken." The Count's eyes began to glow yellow as he began to hypnotise the poor woman, "You will go home and...do whatever it is that you do." He clicked his fingers; waking her up from her trance.

"Oh, I really think that I should be going home now. Happy birthday, dear." She sighed to Tabby, "Oh dear, how time does fly. Isn't that right, Mr Count?"

"Mmm" He mumbled in agreement as he all but shoved Mrs Brannaugh out of the castle door.

***

"So what are we going to do?" The Count asked Selene once the others were out of earshot. Selene shook her head. "I don't know that we can actually do anything other than...try to protect Tabitha." The fire in the hearth blazed with a hellish fury, despite the lack of fuel. After a tense moment the Count gripped the stone fireplace. "That...is hardly ideal." It took a violent effort to keep his voice calm...If anything happened to Tabitha...

"Half past nine, will the enraged phantom strike..." he murmured to himself, "Grey mage... The eternally damned be righteous when the dragons protect the wild virgin lamb."

"Yes." Selene mumbled, "Your family crest is a dragon." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. "So, I assume that you are the ones that have to protect Tabitha; the wild virgin lamb..." She looked at her Rolex quickly.

Her eyes widened in terror. "Half past nine!"


	8. Half past nine

"What the _hell_ is _that?_" Ingrid shrieked as a hideously scarred image of Magda grasped at the back of Tabitha's collar. She hurled Tabby sharply against the hard stone wall of Ingrid's coffin-room.

"I never did get to thank you for sending me to hell." The ghost spat furiously, her iceberg-like fangs bared to Tabitha's throat. Magda's pale, burnt hand thrust her head against the solid stone wall. Tabitha groaned as dull, overpowering pain sliced into her head.

The Count burst into the room. His jaw clenched at the morbid sight the confronted him. Images from his nightmares that Halloween slammed through his consciousness. The bride of Dracula- blood dripping from her mouth; her eyes black with unadulterated, beautiful, vengeful thirst.

The ghoulish reality; Magda's pallid cheeks were hollow and gaunt. Her black eyes were crazed-made mad by the unrelenting burning of Dante's inferno. Her once beautiful, marble face was marred by sickening purple scars. Her once delicate, elegant hands were clawed and gnarled and burnt by torture. Her dark hair was streaked irreverently with grey and white-this was far, far worse than his nightmares had predicted.

"Hello, darling." She hissed in a grotesque, liquid, gurgling voice.

Tabitha gasped for breath as the velvet of her black cloak dug unmercifully into her throat. She was dimly aware of a line going around and around in her head. "Half past nine, will the enraged phantom strike."

"Exorcism! Exorcism!!! SOMEBODY EXORCISE HER BEFORE SHE CHOKES ME TO DEATH, PLEASE!" her inner voice shrieked to anyone-everyone. "Bloody exorcise her-it's a phantom!" It continued to cry.

"Father God, Enter unto this unholy den!" Someone cried- The Count turned to see who-Timothy stood in the doorway. His eyes were rolled back into his head as he continued in a harsh, zealous cry of damnation, "Protect thy precious daughter that thou hast gifted unto this world. Protect her from the fiends from hell that would harm thy precious child. Retreat! Foul beast of infernal makings." He pointed a young, pale finger at Magda's terrible form which had shrunk into itself out of terror. "Retreat! And befoul this good Earth with thine terrible breath and thine perfidious presence no longer! I do tell thee, that shall this order not be met; your ghost shall ever and always walk in the deepest fires of Hell and shall look upon all those that you have butchered needlessly with woe and regret, for they shall reign with angels as God's children in heaven. Go, I bid thee and save thy semblance of soul!"

The grey, burnt, scarred phantom let out a mighty shriek!

The Count cringed at the ear-bursting wailing.

Tabitha was dropped. It was as she landed with a painful 'crack!' that she began...to...draw...her... shuddering-gasping breaths. The air suddenly froze. Icicles formed on Tabitha's lashes. It felt as if Tabitha were breathing in liquid nitrogen. Everything was going to go black and fall off. Tabitha was sure of it. Inner frostbite. She was going to fall apart.

The blistering wail carried on and on and on. Timothy continued in that strange, zealot's voice. "No then? Then blister and regret, foul concubine of the Devil. Blister and regret. No longer shall you linger on this Earth. No longer shall you feast on the blood of innocents. Dreaded Lucifer! I summon you. Take this despicable whore that is forthwith thine. And deal with her as you see fit!"

Tabitha's lungs suddenly turned to flame. The floor felt like molten rock. Her skin felt as if it were peeling-like sunburn-but a thousand times worse. A bright, bloody-red light burst into the chamber like a lanced boil spurts pus. Flames seemed to engulf the entire chamber. Tabitha lifted her head. Her eyeballs felt as if they were being fried-flambéed like a campfire marshmallow.

It was a fawn. Not a cute fawn with rude shepherd's pipes. Not like Pan. It wasn't a kindly fawn wearing a scarf, carrying an umbrella and a stack of presents. Not like Mr Tumnus. This Fawn was eight feet tall. Black, fuzzy hair circled his head like a dark halo and groped its way down his burnt, raw torso. The torso was similar to that of a man whilst the legs were thickly furred in black, right down to the shiny, black hooves. His eyes were burning-red and blistered. His black lips curled over fangs that looked like they came from the maw of a great white shark.

The fawn's eyes locked onto Timothy's gangly form. It licked its lips with a tongue that was little more than a rotten, charred stump of flesh. Timothy silently pointed to Magda's quavering, moaning ghost. The fawn's eyes suddenly lit up even further. Tabby curled into the foetal position on the flagstone floor; hoping against hope that the hellish demon creature wouldn't notice her. She screwed her eyes shut against Magda's resounding screams as the creature used its long, yellow nails to drag the ghost through the portal to Hell.

The red light was gone. The sweltering heat was gone.

Timothy's eyes suddenly closed and he fell to the floor; completely drained of any energy. Ingrid flitted out of the chamber, her skin almost green whilst her eyes bulged. Tabitha suddenly found her throat mercilessly tight. Unrelenting tears threatened to spill over the rims of her eyes. The Count collapsed in the doorway. He laid his head on the wall beside him. Without opening his eyes Timothy whispered hoarsely, "Thank God you have a necromancer in the family, Tabby, coz exorcism wouldn't have done anything at all. That was a poltergeist. Somebody sent her to you."

"We've just seen the gates of Hell." The Count sighed belligerently. "And it's only twenty to ten."

Despite herself, Tabby couldn't stifle a small giggle. "I take it everyone's ok so far, then."


	9. Meeting Emmeline

Emmeline stood on her pallid, spindly legs in the middle of the main hall and surveyed the birthday decorations along with the half eaten chocolate cake with Smarties and electric blue icing. She raised her delicate, blond brows as she calculated that there must be far more weight watcher's points in one bite than should be allowed in a whole day.

She stared at the comatose adolescents that were sprawled over each other. She recognised them by sight-so many times she had walked past them up the Stokely high street and they hadn't cast so much as an admiring glance _her_ way. No! They were too wrapped up in awe at _Tabitha's _power. Tall, tanned Gregori, ruby-headed Faye, petite, dark haired Emily and Vlad Dracula, dark skinned, powerful Selene. They all looked to _Tabitha! _

She spat at their sleeping bodies in spite. Katarina should have died and stayed dead!

The confrontation hadn't been a hard one on Emmeline's part. She stalked past their bodies, leaving her 'father' to deal with them. Magda should be finished with Tabitha and her demon pimp, she reasoned silently. She skipped childishly along the corridors that led to the scene that she most looked forward to-Tabitha's plain, ugly head on a spike.

***

The Count couldn't stop himself from dragging Tabitha by her arm. Tim followed behind her. Ingrid had flitted off to find Will and scram out of the castle.

There was no way in heaven, hell or on Earth that Anna was going to kill Tabitha. Not again. All those previously forgotten memories slipped through his consciousness. Her creamy gold skin shining in the moonlight. Her moist lips beckoning him…all those times that she had laughed with him…They had played hard-especially him, he knew somehow that they couldn't have peace until it was properly finished; until Tabitha was properly of age. Eighteen years old at ten-o-three tonight.

"Stop pulling on my arm. It's beginning to hurt." Tabitha breathed. The Count barked a short, harsh laugh. "You're worried about your arm hurting when we have just seen the gates of hell, sent the poltergeist of my dead ex-girlfriend through them and we still have yet to face Anna herself. You stupid girl! You worry all the time about the wrong things. Fine! If your arm hurts, well then I'll just leave you here." He spat. Tabitha stared at him. All kinds of emotions churned behind her eyes and clogged her throat. Hurt. Anger. Despair…Fury. "Fine." She said shortly. She turned and would have snapped her fingers to pop away-

"Cat, don't." Tim hissed plaintively.

Tabby turned to face him. His dark eyes were unreadable. "You heard Faye's prophecy. If you zap away on us, whoever's trying to get you has already won…and that doesn't really sound much like a good thing." His lips were set in a grim line.

A scattering of skipping feet reached Tabby's ears. Skitter. Skip-skip. Skitter. "Tabitha, oh Tabitha. Oh, fat little Tabitha. Come here and look at this thing that I bring so I'll wake up, be bright and golden and light. Oh, Tabby, hear what I sing!" A childish little voice sang in an off-key voice to the theme tune of 'Bagpuss'. A sinister shudder ran down Tabitha's spine. A child!? Any normal person would find this laughable. Witches knew better than anyone that children with powers were the most terrifying thing imaginable. They only had a frail thread of control over their powers-and with the inevitable tantrums…

Tabitha moved toward the girlish giggling unwillingly. The Count grabbed her arm in a panic. "No!" He hissed, "She can't have you. Not again!" Tabitha tried to turn to him but she couldn't. An invisible force was dragging her to the little girl with long, blond curls, pale skin and skinny limbs that had appeared at the end of the corridor.

The Count held onto Tabitha in the painfully desperate vice of his embrace. He closed his eyes and let his consciousness seep into the bones of the castle. He set lethal traps along the corridor-pits with pointed metal stakes and animated suits of armour.

She couldn't have his Kitten again. No. Not again.

"You can't keep her, demon. She belongs to me. She belonged to me before you ever laid eyes on her. And I say that she dies." The scarily cherubic voice called nastily, "give her to me and you might get out of this alive."

"I'm already dead! I'm not giving her up. Not ever." The Count snarled.

"Alright. I'm bored now. Time for a little demonstration, I think." The little girl smiled evilly and beckoned toward Timothy.

Tim walked forward with a terrified scream. He knew what waited for him beneath the loosening slabs of rock that he stood upon. His eyes were wild. Tabitha froze. Her eyes were wide. The Count didn't blink. He cursed himself for his stupidity. They couldn't move. All they could do was wait for the moment of the falling.

The falling. It went on for eternity. First one rock slipped beneath Tim. Then the rest started to fall into the dark abyss.

Tabitha's ears were numb to his screaming. Her lungs were scraping with the shrieks of sorrow and fury that were wrenched from them.

The Count simply stared in silence, waiting for the thud of finality. It came. Thud. Brutal. Swift.

"Tim! Tim! God! No! Tim!" Tabitha's eyes were streaming for the loss of her brother. She hung limply from the Count's arms. Ferocious wrath stabbed at her eyes as they bored into the deceptively angelic girl at the end of the shadowy corridor. The girl smiled a sickly winsome smile. "Will you give her to me now? I promise that I'll make it less painful than what you just saw. He's still alive, you know. I know that you can hear that gurgling that is his last few breaths. He's in agony." She said that last in pointed, punctuated syllables. Three simple words. The Count clung to Tabitha even more tightly…

He refused to let her go again.

"You will speak to _me_ you sadist bitch." Tabitha spat vehemently. She straightened and stood, glowering down at the tiny girl who could only be about ten years old. "You don't own me, you never did. You just killed my brother. You will die for that. I'll make it slow. Painful. You may think that you are big and bad, Anna. But you are nothing compared to me. I have no mercy left to me now."

From somewhere a clock chimed three minutes past ten. Tabitha smiled a sick, wicked smile that was so out of place in her features that even the little girl stepped back nervously. Tingles of sheer power burst rapturously through her veins. Every nerve was ignited. Tabby was suddenly aware of each tiny particle of potential magic inside her body, all screaming to be set on the tiny fiend. "My turn." She said softly as she smashed the girl against the wall.

Emmeline slumped to the floor. She scrambled back to her feet, determined to have the revenge and power that she was owed. A painful ache in her arm grew into agony. A broken arm. Perfect, she mused sarcastically.

"Emmeline, love." A white-haired man appeared behind her. It was only his hair that betrayed his age, for his face was deceptively young and untouched by the long years. A frown creased his unnaturally smooth brow as he viewed the little girl in pain. "Merlin!" she whined, "She did this to me. She's always caused me pain. I want her _dead!_" she pointed a spindly little finger in Tabitha's direction. The man's eyes grew thunderous. He began to hiss a spell under his breath and fling it in Tabitha's direction when the Count flitted behind him. A quick, wrenching 'snap' was all that could be heard in the cold narrow hallway.

Merlin couldn't believe it. He'd eluded death for so long. Why now? He looked down at his slumping body and vacant eyes. "Merlin." The familiar voice of his loving wife whispered in the shell of his ear, "time to come home."

Emmeline stamped her tiny foot in childish exasperation. "This is _so unfair!_" she screeched.

That simple statement effectively removed the hazy, red glare from Tabitha's eyes. After all, this was only a child. Anna was obviously still ticked off that this hadn't finished five-hundred years ago. "No!" her inner voice hissed in surprise. "That Mage _fed_ this girl Anna's essence!?"

"Wait." Tabby murmured softly, just as the Count lifted the brat up cruelly by her long hair. He looked at Tabitha with a fierce scowl. Anna deserved to die for everything that she'd taken from him-from Tabitha.

"Why do you want me dead?" Tabby demanded gently.

"Because your power is _mine!_" the girl spat with a hideous glower, "You Witches think you

are better than us, just because we have to use incantations to control our limited power. But

death has made me even more powerful, you see. So you will die _now_,giving me everything

that I should have had before!"

Tabitha smiled sadly. "Can't you just let it go?

"What!?" The Count exclaimed, "you're not actually thinking of letting her go-"

"Yes I am." Tabitha replied faintly.

"But-"

"Anna. It's time to go home." Tabitha whispered. She had this power now. She could put the dead back to sleep. The little girl was suddenly raised up. The Count relinquished his hold on the golden tendrils. The girl smiled blissfully before delicately dissolving into the air.

"Our father,

Who art in Heaven,

Hallowed be thy name,

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

On Earth, as it is in Heaven,

Give us this day, our daily bread,

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us,

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil,

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,

For ever and ever,

Amen" Tabitha whispered for both Anna and Tim.

Poor Tim, to be caught in the crossfire.

***

"I'm so sorry, Robin." Tabitha whispered to the gangly boy that had loved her brother desperately. Tears streaked down both their faces for the boy that they had lost that night.

"But you can bring him back can't you? Like you did with Will?" his voice held a pessimistic hope. He could hope-but he probably wouldn't get it. "No, Robin. I can't. Will was already dead when he…died. The balance wasn't affected."

Robin had no idea what 'the balance' was, but he hated it with a passion.

Life without Tim…

S


	10. Ashes to Ashes

"The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. He lets me rest in fields of green grass. He leads me to quiet pools of fresh water. He gives me new strength. He guides me in the right paths as he has promised. Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me. Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me.

You prepare a banquet for me where all my enemies can see me. You welcome me as an honoured guest and fill my cup to the brim. I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life. Your house will be my home for as long as I live." Tabitha's throat clogged up on that last sentence of the reading. She looked over at Robin meaningfully. His dark eyes were glazed with tears. "He's young." Her inner voice said thoughtfully, "He'll find someone else." But deep in her gut, she knew that she couldn't know that for certain. She blinked sadly as Robin bent his head, his shoulders heaving with tears.

The coffin was lowered into the saturated, brown dirt. The raindrops kept falling on the polished mahogany. They tap-tapped on the black shelter of the umbrella that Renfield held over both her and the Count. "Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust." Those words and the words that followed were mumbled through the lips of the High Witch presiding over the funeral.

Selene came forward and threw the first handful of soil into the grave.

Faye, with her elegant black raven-feathered hat gripped Gregori's black gloved hand as the both threw their handfuls of dirt into the grave.

Emily stood forward with her handful of dirt. Her features were warm. "We will meet again, dear brother." She whispered-ever the optimist. Vlad stood straight-backed and respectfully silent behind her.

Tabby stepped forward gingerly, reluctant to deliver her last goodbye to her foster brother. She scooped up her handful of soil and scattered it into the grave, silently scattering pieces of her power with them. The High Witch merely raised his brows at the unusual act. "We will always remember you, Tim." She murmured before turning back to the Count.

Robin stepped forward without his usual awkward clumsiness and deftly scooped up his handful of dirt. He spilled it slowly into the hole. "I love you, Tim." Though the words weren't said, every Witch by the graveside heard them. Robin, dressed in a solemn black suit turned away from the grave. Tabitha's heart ached for him.

Several minutes later, the little gathering turned away from the grave whilst the rain still hammered down. The Count took Tabitha's hand and urged her to walk with him up to the castle. He didn't know what to say. The pair hadn't spoken since Tim's death. She had simply cried and the Count had held her, praying that her tears would stop.

So the pair walked together up to the castle with Renfield, Vlad and Emily trailing behind them. Tabitha didn't want to go home. Home was where Timothy had lived, where Tabitha had her most pronounced memories of him. But she didn't really want to be at the Castle either, where Tim's life had been so brutally ended.

It had been a week.

***

"How was it?" Ingrid asked tentatively as the Count and Tabitha sat down on one of the plush velvet settees in the main hall. Normally, she would have made fun at Tabitha's long, sad face, but there was a saying among vampires. 'Do not try the patience of Witches. They are subtle and quick to anger.' Ingrid wasn't in the mood for experimentation today.

"It was a normal kind of funeral. Sad. Solemn. Funereally." Tabitha mumbled, staring at the dying fire. The Count took her hand in his and ran the cold pad of his thumb over her white knuckles. He hated that she was this miserable.

"Hmm." Ingrid turned to Renfield, Vlad and Emily as they entered, "Renfield. I need mine and Will's bags packed. Do it before you even touch Dad's and Vlad's"

Tabitha's head snapped up immediately. "You're leaving!?" She asked with incredulity. The Count rolled his eyes and glowered at Ingrid. "Dad!" Vlad hissed, "I told you that you should have told her-"

"There wasn't exactly much opportunity." The Count hissed back at him.

"You're leaving!?" Tabby demanded of Vlad, "What about Emily?" Vlad rolled his cold blue eyes as if the answer was blatantly obvious. "She's coming with me."

Tabby turned on Emily. "When the hell were you going to tell me? When are you leaving?" Emily floundered, stuttering nervously under Tabitha's fierce glare. A nearby glass candelabrum shattered suddenly, making everyone bar Tabitha flinch. The glowing pieces of hot glass clattered to the stone floor. "Kitten." The Count sighed, "Perhaps you and I should discuss this in private." She narrowed her eyes at him accusingly. "Fine." She said shortly before abruptly zapping herself into a furnished bedroom. The Count followed her with a low growl of apprehension. Discussion was not quite what Tabitha had in mind.

More like a blazing row.

"When were you going to tell me?" Tabitha demanded, "Did you not think that I might be just a little bit interested?" Her hazel eyes were flaring with fury. Her soft, usually pliant lips were trembling with hurt. "As I said," the Count muttered, "there wasn't exactly a lot of opportunity to tell you…we're leaving on Saturday." Tabby's eyes widened. "But that's only two days away!" she exclaimed. She turned away toward the huge four-poster bed. She bit her lip agitatedly. "I can't come with you can I?" she murmured softly with a small, pessimistic hope…

"No, Kitten."

"Don't you dare call me that! Not when you're just…dumping me here-" The Count cut her words off with an aggressive kiss. Tabitha shoved against him furiously but couldn't make him budge. Eventually, she became so caught up in his hard, rough kiss that she began to kiss him back with just as much aggression-letting him know _precisely_ how she felt.

Suddenly, he pulled back and surveyed her passionately flushed face. That small breather didn't last for long-his lips descended upon hers again…The bed was suddenly an urgent necessity.

***

Tabitha woke up to find the Count gazing down at her with smouldering, hungry eyes. His cool fingers traced wandering, shameless circles over her heated skin. Tabitha scrutinised his face for any sign of reluctance or revulsion…there was none. She sifted her fingers through his dark hair. She smiled. She had never seen the Count with bed-head before and it was actually…very sexy. She let her fingers trail down his smooth, marble cheek and sighed. "Where are you going?" she asked softly. The Count's mouth twisted into a grim line. "More questions?" Tabitha's eyebrows rose.

"Could you just answer the question, please?"

"Hungary. Apparently there are some vampires who would rather not have Vlad on the Grand High Vampire's throne."

"Do you know how long it'll take?" "Hopefully not long" her inner voice muttered anxiously. The Count shook his head. "It could take a week or a century to crush this rebellion."

"But why you? Can't you ask Vlad to send someone else?" The Count smiled softly. No of course he couldn't. His honour wouldn't allow it. Damn. He shook his head, then kissed her softly before whispering in the shell of her ear, "Perhaps we should get back to more important business…Could you do what you did before-with that necklace, I mean"…


	11. He's leaving!

The bloody iris of the sun slipped tragically over the horizon. Emily and Vlad were safely packed into the hearse, along with Renfield, Robin and Zoltan.

Tabitha had resolved not to cry. She bit her lip and screwed her eyes shut as she felt the velvet soft touch of the Count's cold hand on her cheek.

She had been prepared for Emily's leaving-Of course she was going to leave sometime but…so soon?

A piece of her heart was being torn away with him. She hated the Bella-esque melodrama of what she felt. Her spine was tensed against the tears. "Take me with you-" she mumbled in a small voice.

The Count pressed her close to him-so loath to let her go-"No." He couldn't put her in that danger. He pressed his lips to hers; a promise that he would return. Afterward, he pressed his cheek against hers and felt the bitter tears drip sorrowfully from her eyes.

"At least promise me that you'll keep in touch-a couple of letters or phone calls wouldn't go amiss." She murmured, desperately trying to keep the shudders from her throat. "I'll try." He said numbly. He stood back and took her hand. He kissed it tenderly, in exactly the way he had when they had first met.

"Dad, we've got to go." Vlad called. Cursing his son his callousness, he let her hand fall. He laid his fingers for the last time on her tear-flushed cheek. "Goodbye." She said it for him. He frowned and turned toward the hearse.

The next thing that he knew, he was staring through the black glass of the hearse. The smell of Renfield's underarm sweat struck his sensitive nose a hard blow but he didn't notice. The roaring of the rusting engine slammed at his ears but he didn't notice. The car moved forward-away from the castle-Tabitha shrunk in size-he noticed that!-Away from Tabitha.

"Tabitha!" he groaned. If he had been standing he would have crumpled. She didn't.

She didn't crumple until the hearse was completely out of sight. "Vlad!" she cried.

She felt Gregori's arms pick her up and cradle her-she felt Faye's small, comforting hand on her shoulder. "Let's go home." Selene murmured in her strong, Caribbean voice.

Tabitha couldn't help but cry. And keep crying.

"Count Vladimir Dracula. I hope you burn in hell for doing this to my sister." Gregori muttered darkly as Selene took them home.


	12. Reunion

"Don't be aroused- by my confession-unless you don't give a good god damn about redemption-I know…Christ is comin'…and so am I-you would too if the sexy devil caught your eye-she'll suck you dry..."

The Puscifer song wound its way out onto the dark, wet street that the Count (newly made a Duke) stood in, glowering in disgust at the London club where Tabitha had decided to hide her self.

"Brother…It could be worse…it could be a nunnery." Ivan the terrible murmured nervously as he eyed his brother's expression; the last five years since the Count had left Stokely had changed him. He was far less flamboyant. More animalistic yet still refined…and less inclined toward laughter. His skin, whilst he had lived in Stokely had aged slightly with the deprivation of blood, whereas now, the lines of his face were entirely smooth and far more youthful than Ivan had seen in centuries.

Truthfully, the head of the family had never struck much fear into Ivan's heart…but now, he was terrified.

"The Admiral's Arms." Dracula spat in irritation, "She'll be eaten alive in there." He rapped sharply on the steel door. A latch flicked and a tiny sliding door-well-_slid_ open. "Got a ticket?" The burly bouncer demanded in a deep, booming voice. Dracula flicked the tickets out of a pocket of his long, suede, Victorian style coat and slid them through the little latch. They were snatched away and the latch slid closed with a grating squeak.

Suddenly, the heavy door swung inward, granting the immortal pair admission.

"She'll make you weep and moan and cry…to be back in her bosom…to do it again…"

Dracula swept past the bouncer and stepped gracefully down the stairs. The smell of sweat and blood was a sweet, heady mixture-intoxicating! He closed his eyes and appreciated the bouquet…and continued down into a large, crypt-like antechamber that was dark except for the phantom flares of lights that flashed about the room.

Ivan brought up the rear and scoured the room with his eyes-examining every female body he could find. Giggles and laughter and soft moans filled the heated air-

-"PRAY! 'Til I go blind-PRAY! Cause nobody ever survives- I'm praying to stay in your arms so I can die a little longer-Saviours and saints and devils and heathens alike…she'll eat you alive…"

"To your wedding, Faye! And a great hen do! Wooo!" A drunken screech sounded. Dracula turned toward the sound and spied Tabitha and Faye and several other people that _he _didn't know, in a small alcove near the bar, where hundreds of drinks were being served by a scaly, green barman.

Dracula instructed his brother "go have some fun, Ivan." Before he found a seat directly opposite the girls-in a small alcove of his own. He let his eyes drink in Tabby's long, fishnet clad legs that led up to a tiny, pleated, black silk skirt that was tucked into a risqué Basque that had a black, puffball sleeved, blouse also tucked into it with a 'Stokely grammar' tie tied into a fat knot with a short tongue-a slutty schoolgirl!

A waiter brought him a blood martini before long. He took the glass from the tray and tipped the pimply-faced university boy who had obviously been told 'you see anything weird in here-you tell no-one, not even your mum-geddit?'. Dracula plucked out the olive-like eyeball and popped it into his mouth as he continued surveying his prey.

"Aww, c'mon Tabs, come dance-I can't do it on my own." Faye slurred in her drunk, south London drawl. "Okay, Okay!" Tabitha slurred back in her more queenly, yet still blind drunk speak. She stood up and took off her 'zombie attack-iron fist' shoes before praying that no-one had stilettos on. Both girls made their way to the dance floor and were eyed by everything male there.

Dracula's fist closed tensely around the stem of his glass and decided to go hunt. He slipped off his coat and made his way to where Tabitha was swaying her hips to the music and laughing with Faye. Tabby's back was to him and he stepped lithely through the crowd that jostled and rubbed around him.

Almost immediately, he was right behind her; her only warning was Faye's thunderstruck expression. She turned and her face turned to stone-not literally, of course-"What do you want?" she murmured, not loud enough for anyone but him to hear. He leaned over and let his lips graze the shell of her ear. "I wish to speak with you, Kitten." He whispered through the pulsing and throbbing melody of the techno-Goth metal music. He took her elbow and effortlessly led her off the dance floor and picked up his coat. He continued to lead her up the stairs and into the damp London alley. The bouncer eyed them with something akin to alarm. "It's OK, Ben." Tabitha assured him before following Dracula a little way up the alley.

A few moments later and they stopped. "What do you want?" She demanded tersely. Dracula's eyebrows rose subtly. "No 'hello, how are you?' 'I love you'?" he asked in his low, melodic voice. "After five years; no letters, no phone calls-not even a text to tell me that it was over! You actually expect me to be pleased to see you!?" she hissed, incredulity springing into her tone. "I had hoped that such would be the case, yes. But I see that _it _is over for you, anyway, with your whore's clothing." He muttered blandly, gesturing to her slutty schoolgirl get-up. "So, I'm not allowed to have fun?" she asked, "I can't celebrate my sister's upcoming wedding, without my ex's permission-"

She would have continued, had Dracula not slammed her up against a wall and pinned her there. He actually considered 'taking' her there-it was what she was begging for with her flesh on display, but he decided not to act on his impulse. "Our relationship…was not a fling." He bit out into her ear. "It is over when I say it is over. I am your past, your present and your future." He hissed, "You will attend the gathering next week. If you choose not to come gracefully, that is your prerogative, but if you don't, I drag you there in chains. You're mine."

And he left her and disappeared up the street. Tears clogged her throat; sexual frustration and the frightening change that her 'Countie' had undergone over the five years of complete separation…again, for the second time in her life, what should have been a nightmare sent frissons of heightened sexual awareness through her throbbing body…


	13. The Witch Queen of the Vampires

"Since when do ravens fly at night!?" The Grand High Vampire demanded of his incompetent subjects, all thirteen sheepishly hanging their heads against Vlad's verbal onslaughts. "How were we meant to know that they weren't an invasion force?" One muttered indignantly after Vlad had finished. Vlad swiped at the idiot's face with his left hand, his sharp, elongated nails gouging into the prat's pallid flesh. He would have continued on but for the delicate hand on his shoulder. He turned to face Emily, scowling blackly at her before turning back to the vampires that had attacked the Witches the moment the black birds had appeared on the mountainous horizon line. "Get up and get out of my sight." He hissed, fury dousing his voice in sheer, brittle coldness. They all got up, bowed and hastily made their way out of the gargantuan great hall, without once showing the Grand High Vampire their backs.

When He and Emily were alone in the hall, he whirled on her. Before he could begin to address her, she said, "Wasn't that a bit unnecessary?"

"Are you insane? They'll never respect me if I'm soft!" Vlad yelled.

"But you are soft…nice. I know you are." Emily murmured, not at all daunted by Vlad's towering anger. Vlad's anger dissipated as he grinned lecherously. He wound his arms around Emily's waist and pressed himself to her. "I think you know that I'm not soft at all. You think _that's_ nice." Vlad murmured. Emily smiled against his lips as he pressed them to hers. She pulled away just as he would have deepened the kiss. "Don't change the subject."

"Urgh! You're not going to start being one of those nagging kind of wives are you?" Vlad asked plaintively. "Vlad. You don't have to be soft, but you don't have to beat the crap out of everyone that makes a mistake."

"It wasn't a mistake, and I'm sure you'd feel differently if they'd have actually hurt or killed Tabby or Faye…or Greg or-" Vlad murmured darkly.

"Tabby's here?" Emily asked brightly.

"Now who's changing the subject?" a smile wound itself across Vlad's lips as he took her hand with every intention of taking her to meet her brother and sisters.


	14. Resistance is futile

"I see that you came." Dracula murmured to Tabitha just as she entered the great hall. She refused to dignify such a stupid, obvious statement with a retort; instead, she let her eyes run over the black marble dragons that guarded the massive hearths on either side of the circular room. Their wings reached up into the dome that seemed almost as big as St Paul's cathedral in London. The balcony that ran around in was held up by black columns swathed in red silk and surrounded by silver, vampire cherubs, whose wings, instead of being feathery angel's wings, were leathery bat wings.

The walls of the hall were mirrors that reached around seamlessly. Only fifteen people showed in the mirrors despite the hundreds of vampires milling about the hall; Emily; who sat regally on her throne next to Vlad, Robin; who evidently, Vlad had chosen to keep mortal, Tabitha and the ambassadorial entourage (there was no way in hell that the high witches would let Tabitha go to Transylvania alone).

"Despite the dubious welcome that you received as you arrived, Witches." Vlad began in a loud voice, effectively silencing all in the crowd, "I offer you now the hands of friendship and alliance in the hopes that you will forgive the grievous transgressions of a few silly boys."  
"And we would gratefully accept the friendship and alliance that you offer now, forgetting all past transgressions, that were, we are sure, perfectly accidental." Constance Hardbroom, the Leading High Witch said in a calm, authoritative manner, belying the hands that were fisted, ready for action, at her side, gripping her velvet cloak that was identical to Tabitha's.

"Then why are you so afraid Witch?" a voice jeered-it was Baron Parok, "perhaps it is because they are so weak!" the rotund, jowly vampire chortled.  
"Unless you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, Parok, I would be glad to cut out your uncivil tongue." Dracula said disdainfully, his long, impeccable nails sharpening.

Tabitha felt a warming in her heart and a wrenching pang of what she had lost when he had left-what she could not afford to want again.

"Y-y-your Grace." The Baron stuttered as his eyes almost comically popped out, knowing that Dracula, as a duke, had far more power than any other, more influence and much more strength and finesse since his stint in Hungary-he would do well to keep from offending him. "I-I-I apologise most profusely."  
"So you should." Dracula murmured with a dangerous glint in his icy blue eyes-Tabitha dared not look to see if it was there, she simply knew that it was.

"We have no need of your assistance, your Grace." Tabby said, a slight-very slight quaver in her voice betraying her sheer terror at Dracula's change over the last five years. "Actually, I believe that you do." He whispered in the sensitive shell of her ear, sending heat trickling over her skin.

"Ignore Parok." Vlad said genially to Constance, "Chambers have been prepared for your use. I'll have my servants show you to them."

*****

"Why are you ignoring me?" His taunting voice crept quietly into Tabby's hearing as she lay on her bed reading Wuthering Heights. She frantically pursued every word in the following sentence, distracting herself from his mesmerising, seductive voice that was like sugar-so moreish!

'Would _you _like to live with your soul in the grave?' no, she really didn't want to; she wanted to be dead with him; her soul, but she had to resist if she was going to keep any of her self respect. She had to keep on living without him; she couldn't keep pining after him.

Suddenly her book was flung into the fire and her body was pressed into the bed. "Why are you ignoring me?" Dracula growled.

"Get off me!" Tabitha screamed, "It wasn't me that left, promising that I would write-text-whatever! And never contacted _you_ in five-five! Years. How dare you suddenly just burst into my life, uninvited when I was just getting over you-"

He mauled her lips with his, grabbing at her clothes-she resisted his hands, she had to. It was too hard! His lips were hard and demanding and the velvet roughness of his tongue was amazing. Resistance was futile and she would forever hate him for that.


	15. Her Other Lover

He watched her with black, unblinking eyes, unable to block the throbbing of her pulse from his highly sensitive ears. A smile graced his lips as her heart-rate became increasingly erratic; she knew he was watching her with greedy lust as she pulled on various items of clothing. Tabitha's skin flushed a shade of pink that set his hunger-not for _blood_ per se, but for her-spiralling. He lay languidly stretched out on the bed, feeling a tingle of euphoria over the fact that she'd surrendered. Once she'd shut her thoroughly feminine mouth for...well, however long they'd been at it, she must have realised that nothing had needed to be said.

Dracula's irksome cat-found-the-cream smile erased itself as his silk shirt sailed through the air and landed in his face. "Get dressed and get out" Tabby hissed, refusing to look him in the eye, just in-case he took it in his head to hypnotise her back into bed.

"What!" "I said 'get dressed and-'" "I heard what you said." He gripped the red silk shirt in his hand, resisting the urge to flog the girl and fuck her simultaneously. How dared she-a mere _woman_ (albeit a High Witch)-toss the Duke of Wallachia out on his ear? There'd been a time when women had been begging him to stay with them. But then, he reflected, he'd never been interested in them except for the thrill of the (usually momentary) chase. Well, that and their blood, but that was beside the point.

"You can't just experience the best sex of your life and then just...discard me!" outrage sizzled in his gut, combined with the disgust he felt as playing the role of the jealous temporary partner that he'd exploited over the centuries. Tabitha's brow crinkled in mock bemusement, "I'm sorry, your Grace," the title was said with heavy mockery, "but isn't that what you did to me?" "No, that was different and you know it." "Not feeling guilty?" she sounded vaguely hopeful, as if she were spoiling for a fight. Which, of course, she was. "Not in the least." Dracula pronounced.

"Well then, nothing more need be said," imperiously, she pointed at the door. "Spit spot." "I beg your pardon?" Dracula murmured coldly, graceful brows arched. At first, this little _altercation _had been amusing, then confusing and then irritating. Now, he was getting angry. He settled into the silk pillows of her bed and surveyed Tabitha with an insolence born of breeding, arrogance and pure evil. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you'd forgotten your place-"

"My _place_!" she hissed in barely leashed fury. She was older and wiser than she'd been at eighteen. "I'm a High Witch, meaning: you don't fuck with _me."_ "I was under the impression that I just did, Kitten." At his degrading use of the old endearment, she cringed. How dared he, after five years without a phone call, a text or a letter, demand that she submit to him. "Don't call me that-" "Would you prefer 'my love'?" "I wouldn't call me that either," malice unfurled in her breast-the painful need to hurt him, "seeing as I'm no longer 'yours'." Tabby had to admit that she should have thought about what she'd said _before_ she'd said it. As it was, any psychiatrist worth their salt would proclaim her suicidal.

Dracula's eyes glowed red as he shot up from the bed. Taking her by surprise, his long, elegant fingers wrapped around her neck, stroking threateningly up and down the ivory column. "Who is he?" the syllables were whispered with a coldness that shot straight down Tabby's spine. But she refused to back down. She looked him right in the eye, though her knees quaked.

"And I would tell you-why?" she furtively licked her lips. Had it been any other time or place, Dracula would have licked them for her, along with the rest of delectable anatomy, but not now. He had to know who'd stolen _his _woman. His soul mate; he may not have a soul but Tabitha had enough soul for the pair of them and the lack of her made every atom of his existence cry out in vicious fury. "I', going to find out. And when I do," his voice was husky and sensual as he proceeded, "I will impale him in the most public place I can find-Trafalgar square sounds appealing-and I will make you watch it. That will be the last you ever see of daylight, because then I'll have you chained to my coffin, ready to service me whenever I desire." "You're disgusting. You'd never get away with it." She spat, feeling the perverse warmth that always crept through her abdomen at his cruel, possessive threats. "I try. And I will; I'll drain anyone who tries to stop me dry. So, are you going to tell me?" "I'm sorry, I can't see the incentive." Of course she could. The highly sexual part of her psyche wanted to be chained, wanted to be punished, wanted to be his whore. But ultimately, she was stronger than that, and more selfless than that. Not to mention that this mystery man didn't exist in the first place.

Eyes glowing gold, he hypnotised his precious-if treacherous-victim. "Tell me," He commanded, Jealousy gnawing ravenously at his heart, "the name of you lover. I want the name of the man who stole your heart." Tearfully and tonelessly, Tabitha answered, "You. Only you."

Snapping his fingers as a smug, relieved grin flickered across his lips, he reproved her, "You always did have to make things difficult." "What do you mean?" Tabby demanded warily. "I never knew you could be so cruel as to string me along with that nonsense tale of your other lover. Especially when I've always been the only one you've taken to your heart and your bed." He laughed, feeling all traces of malignant jealousy fall away. Irked, Tabby lied (unconvincingly by any stretch of the imagination) "I've had hundreds of men. I could probably teach you a thing or two. They seemed so much _better_ at lovemaking than you." Suddenly furious at being found lacking in any department, he growled; "then maybe I should give you a proper basis for comparison." "No!" she pushed him away and thrust the rest of his clothes into his hands. "Out!" she commanded.

"What in particular were your imaginary lovers better at than _me_: the Prince of Darkness and the Seducer of innocents?" he demanded hotly. "Seducing." Tabby told him as she shoved him, still naked out of her bedroom door. "They weren't like _you_; they didn't get everything the moment they wanted it. They wrote me poems and love letters. They sent me flowers and chocolates and..." despite the fact that her Dracula was looking more and more horrified by the second, she just _had _to push that little bit further, "they serenaded me." Abruptly, Dracula began choking. "But I _can't _–I mean-I _refuse _to sing."

Tabitha slammed her bedroom door, howling with laughter as Dracula rolled his eyes. Walking into sunlight would surely be better than the torture she had planned for him. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than a gaggle of Witches, escorted by the crème de la crème of Vampiric youth i.e. the rich, lecherous old fogies, turned round the corner and erupted into fits of hysterical laughter at the sight of the Grand High Vampire's sire in his birthday suit.

"Dei Acherontis!" he spat, flitting into an empty room to escape the laughter that followed him.

"Tabitha, my love," he swore, "you will pay dearly for this." And if last night was any indication, he would thoroughly enjoy it.


	16. Dracula In Trouble

"Dad," Vlad smirked, "As much as I love you, I can't have you wandering about the palace naked. It does something to our image, you see."

"It wasn't my fault." Dracula growled, glaring daggers at Emily, the Grand High Vampire's Consort, who was struggling to decide whether she was disgusted at the image of her father-in-law in the buff or amused at the chase that Tabitha, her Witchkin, was a-leading him.

Dracula was annoyed-there was no other word for it. His angry lover had thrown him out, demanding that _he_-the Prince of Darkness-play the petrarchan lover; writing sappy poems, sending gifts with notes of sweet nothings attached and...he shuddered...she wanted to be serenaded. Not to mention that his Kitten hadn't even allowed him to get dressed before booting him out, consequently getting him caught nude in the corridor by eight people who were, no doubt spreading the gossip, and his own son had summoned him for a reprimand. In short, this was _not _his night.

In truth, Vlad had summoned his father simply to ask how Tabitha was; he'd suspected that she hadn't taken kindly to being left in the dark for the past five years. He hadn't even _known_ about his father's predicament until Dracula had ranted at him the moment he'd flitted through the door. To be honest, Vlad couldn't care less; he was glad that his father's emotions had been thrown out of balance-he'd been cold and brutal for far too long. This hopelessly emotional vampire was the Dad he knew and loved.

"Look, maybe you should indulge Tabby a bit." Vlad choked back a laugh. He'd never heard his dad sing and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. Emily burst into hysterics when Dracula's eyes threatened to pop out of his skull. "You would have me lower myself-"

"Have you explained why you didn't keep in touch?"

"As if I could explain such a thing to a _woman_."

Immediately, Emily's lips pursed in a scowl and the fire leapt in its grate. "Would you like to rephrase that?" she murmured.

"Why?"

"She's asking you to stop being sexist. Again." Vlad explained, sitting down at his huge, paper-crammed, mahogany desk at the other end of the study. When Dracula rolled his eyes at such nonsense, Vlad said: "I know. I know. I keep telling her that you're too old and set in your ways-"

"What!"

"Never mind. The point is that _she _feels you've neglected her-and no amount of great sex is going to change that. Besides that, because she is a High Witch, she has influence over the Vampire-Witch Alliance and if that goes tits-up because you can't make Tabby feel special, I'm not going to be pleased."

"You're giving me marching orders?" Dracula cried incredulously. Vlad buried his head in his hands; there were nights when he _really _hated his job.

"No. I'm telling you to relax. Be young and impetuous, you love doing that-"

"Amazing," Dracula muttered drily, "I go from being old and set in my ways to juvenile. I do so love our chats, son." With a bow (that Vlad kept insisting was unnecessary) to the Grand High Vampire and his Consort, he left the study, shooting a quick, withering glare at the guard who was sniggering outside.

Five minutes later, Dracula's luck went from bad to infernal: Ingrid and Will had reached the palace and had been speaking to all the gossips. Dracula detested his daughter at the best of times. This time could definitely be counted as one of the worst.

"Wow Dad. Tabby couldn't stand the sight of your naked form, so she kicked you out. That is precious! At least she's finally grown out of her bad-taste-in-men-phase. How does it feel?" Ingrid smirked.

"Tabitha's taste in men has always been impeccable." He said proudly, before muttering: "The problem is that she wants me to grovel, writing love letters and-urgh!-_singing_ to her." To which Ingrid laughed cruelly.

"Good luck with that. I bet your singing is worse than Renfield's-" suddenly, an idea blossomed in Dracula's mind.

"That's it!" chuckling fiendishly, he clapped his hands. "I'll get Renfield to do all that touchy-breathy stuff. She'll simply have to be satisfied with _that_." Ingrid choked with disgusted horror.

One, she rather liked the strain that Tabitha was putting her father under. Two, she wanted his humiliation after all the years of trying to gain his approval-sucking up, to all intents and purposes-that she'd put herself through. Three: "If Will ever sent that pus-infected maggot to sing to _me, _I'd scratch off his ears."

"Well then, it's a good thing that Renfield's not singing to _you_." Dracula sneered, disguising the small kernel of doubt that Ingrid had buried in his brain. What if his Kitten took it into her head to scratch of his ears...or other quite valuable portions of his anatomy-his right hand, for instance. That hand had been his best friend for the past five years...and a lot less absent than Tabitha had been.

"I'm just saying," Ingrid murmured, straightening her cape, "that you're not going to get into Tabby's good books by sending Renfield to sing. You'd get a better reaction if you asked her to _marry _him." Satisfied with her work, Ingrid flitted away from Dracula's coffin-side to find Will and unpack before making the obligatory greetings to her wormy, pathetic little brother-who just happened to be the Grand High Vampire.

Dracula groaned. There was no getting out of this, was there? "Renfield!" he roared. Something immediately slammed into the door to his coffin-room. It opened "Mes Yaster?"

"Get me parchment...and a pen." He moaned resignedly.


	17. Dracula Must Sing

**Hi everybody! The poem that Dracula sends to Tabby is 'Valentine' by Carol-Ann Duffy-I don't own it (in case any copywrite issues come up) The song that he sings is actually a poem that I wrote as my personal take on 'Valentine', hence the seeming obsession with onions-lol**

**Please read and review :)**

"When's the wedding?" Emily asked with a grin.

"It's on the winter solstice." Faye replied, her small hand clasped in Gregori's much larger one. Tabitha observed her blissfully happy Witchkin with a pang of envy clawing at her heart. Emily had Vlad. Faye had Gregori. Tabitha had...an evil, bloodthirsty, arrogant male chauvinist. And she honestly expected him to walk away from her and her demands. She even half wanted him to. She didn't want the pain of not knowing. Again.

They were all cosied up to the fireplace in the Black Parlour. The sun was at its zenith and all vampires were abed-or acoffin. Even Robin, Vlad's advisor in chief, had taken to sleeping during the day. So the fostered Witches had decided to take the opportunity to catch up. It'd been so long since they'd last been together-since the death of one of their own: Timothy.

"Is the wedding going to be big?" Emily demanded, her pixie face lighting up with glee. Gregori smiled ruefully, "No. I wanted it to be huge with trumpeters and doves-the whole shebang. But Faye informed me that and overwhelming day would be compensated for by an underwhelming night." Faye elbowed him in the ribs at that. Gregori grumbled good-naturedly.

"I'm still not happy," Tabby interjected with a smile, "that we weren't invited to yours, Emmy." To which Emily blushed guiltily. "We couldn't. Vlad was forced to go into hiding: the Vampire Council was divided into the pro-Draculas and the anti-Draculas. Those who were for him only supported him because of tradition. Nobody liked what he stood for-what he _stands_ for-and they didn't like that he was consorting with a Witch. We both had to go into hiding and our wedding had to be secret-"

"Are you telling me," Tabby hissed, "that your Vlad crawled under the bed whilst _my _Vlad was told to fight off all the monsters?" Outrage surged and blistered in Tabby's veins at the thought. Emily snarled-actually _snarled_ (the vampires were rubbing off on her, obviously): "It's not like he wanted to-"

"Enough!" Gregori pinched the bridge of his nose, his calm stretched by the spiking tension between the girls, amplified by his empathic powers. "This is the first time we've been together since God-knows-when; so the pair of you can _damn_ well be civil-High Witch or no High Witch, Consort or no Consort.

"Sorry." Tabby muttered.

"Sorry." Emily replied grudgingly.

"You know, we used to be so close." Faye said mournfully. Tabby and Emily nodded in assent.

"I'm just bitter. Ignore me." The former murmured.

The latter scoffed: "You're that way naturally. I'm feeling angsty because I'm pregnant."

That statement brought about an instantaneous bout of coos and congratulations with Emily beamed at before fear shouldered its way past bliss. "But it'll be a hybrid. I don't know the length of the gestation period, I don't know..._anything!_ A vampire-witch hybrid has only happened once before-"

"I know." Tabby murmured, remembering her past life as Katarina, Count Dracula's young, gypsy lover and her pregnancy with Victor-her doomed, unborn son, "I promise you that it'll be absolutely fine. The only reason that pregnancy didn't come through was because the mother was attacked and..." her voice broke as images of the baby being cut out of her womb bombarded her, "and killed."

Emily grabbed at Tabitha's shaking hands. "I'm sorry. I forgot that it was you-"

"Don't be silly! Don't worry about it." Tabby forced a bright smile while Faye and Gregori looked on uncomfortably.

"Besides, I doubt that I'll be in that predicament again." Tabby grinned a grin that she really didn't feel. She hated Dracula. She hated him because she loved him-twice!-and he'd abandoned her without so much as a word. And because she loved him still and all _he _could think about was dominating her through sex.

During the past five years, she'd gone to university, launched a successful writing career, stepped up as a High Witch and privately pined for her Countie. She'd been on three dates, hoping to wipe the tall, dark vampire from her memory. Number one had been too cautious-not passionate enough. Number two had been too nice-not naughty enough. Number three had been a total knobhead with no wit to save him. In short, she'd failed miserably.

"I don't know." A thoughtful smile curved Emily's lips. "I saw Dracula earlier, and though he seemed...put out, he _was _determined. I read his mind; he'll do whatever it takes to win you back. Hard and fast" she cringed at the unintended innuendo while the others smirked, "didn't work. So I think he'll try softly-softly next."

What happened next couldn't have had better timing: the stained glass window shattered as a flaming arrow torpedoed into Gregori's chair, a terrifying inch and a half away from his crotch. He leapt up with a distinctly unmanly squeal, while Tabby prized the arrow out of the chair and unwrapped the badly scorched parchment, reading:

'Not a heart

I give you an onion

in brown paper

It promises

undressing

Here.

Blind tears

your reflection

A wobbling photo

I am trying to be truthful.

Not cute

I give you an onion.

fierce kiss stay on your lips

Possessive

For as long as we are

Take it.

If you like.

Lethal.

Its scent cling'

Rubbing at her tear-stung eyes, Tabby scrunched up the vaguely insulting note-which, _interestingly_ was written in Dracula's own hand. An onion promising undressing! What the hell did he take her for?

Hurt and Fury pounded through Tabby's veins. How dared he? Immediately, she clicked her fingers and zapped herself away from her Witchkin's questioning faces. She popped almost instantaneously into Dracula's coffin room. Irate, she jerked open the lid of the coffin, scrunched up note in hand, ready to fling in his face.

"Oh good. You got my poem." Dracula smiled gleefully, sitting up in his coffin. When he noted that she was on the verge of tears, he dismissed it, assuming that she was simply overly touched by the poem. Wait...'overly touched' was never a state that Tabitha was in...her lips were pursed and one hand clutched a charred bit of parchment. "A poem?" She choked, "is _that _what this is supposed to be? You know, if you have something to say, say it to my face-" Dracula irritably grabbed the parchment out of the irrational girl's hand. His ire and his confidence shrivelled when he saw what was written...

"Ummm..." he knew what it looked like, with all the lovey-dovey parts burnt away. A tic worked in his jaw, brought about by nervousness and anger. Why _was _it burnt? He'd told Renfield to-

"Renfield!" he roared. The boil-infested dogsbody stumbled in looking slightly dazed from lack of sleep. "Yes Master?"

"What is this?" in his most dangerously menacing voice Dracula sent chills scurrying like rats-not the good ones-over Renfield's body. His master held up a familiar looking bit of parchment... "It's that poem you told me to send to," he pointed at Tabby, "her."

"Why is it scorched?"

"'Cause last time you told me to send a letter, you set it on fire and then told me to send it. So this time, I thought I'd save you the trouble-"

"I was starting a family feud then, not sending a love letter, you dismally proportioned cockroach!" Dracula cried before flitting out of his coffin to twist Renfield's ear half off. "That's not necessary." Tabby protested. "Yes it is." Dracula snarled, his eyes lighting up with black pleasure as Renfield whimpered pitifully.

"No it isn't. This wouldn't have happened if you'd sent it yourself."

"Am I supposed to do _all _of this myself?" Dracula whined.

"Yes." She snapped. He immediately let go of Renfield's ear and pushed him out of the room.

"I hate this." He growled, before an idea struck him. "If I show you the _proper _poem, will you gift me with a kiss?"

"What sort of kiss?"

"The intimate sort of kiss" Dracula smiled with anticipation.

"It depends on what the poem is like." Tabby said airily. Dracula's face fell; this was killing him-or at least it would be if he weren't already dead.

So he showed her the poem:

'Not a red rose or a satin heart

I give you an onion

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper

It promises light

Like the careful undressing of love

Here

It will blind you with tears

Like a lover

It will make your reflection

A wobbling photo of grief

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kiss-o-gram

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips

Possessive and faithful

As we are

For as long as we are

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,

If you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

Cling to your knife.'

"I wrote it myself." He said proudly.

"No you didn't." She scoffed.

"Yes I did."

"No, you really didn't."

"Yes, I really did"

"It was written by a poet called Carol-Ann Duffy"

"How do _you _know?" He spat childishly.

"Because I studied it at university."

"Mephistopheles' teeth! You didn't _actually_ go there, did you?"

"And it was my favourite poem. I love it. Thank you."

"She must have stolen it from me-" he blustered, embarrassed at being caught out, before stopping and turning slack-jawed. She loved it? Before that thought could properly filter through his brain, Tabby kissed him on the cheek-the infuriating kind of kiss one would give an elderly relative.

"We agreed on an intimate kiss." He complained.

"The poem wasn't original." She grinned before saying: "Remember that you still have to sing for me." To which Dracula's face crumpled.

"Don't make me sing-"

"You have to sing for your supper." She teased, making her lover's eyes heat. A wicked grin curved his lips. "I'll do it if my supper is served on you."

"You pervert!" she laughed and agreed. What had she been worrying about? Hard and fast hadn't worked, so her Countie was going softly-softly. For her.

...

Dracula was panicking. He would never admit it, but he was wringing his hands and brooding at alternate intervals; the way he always did when things had gone entirely wrong and he was powerless to prevent the consequences. His kitten wanted him to sing. She wouldn't speak to him again unless he did. More importantly, dinner wouldn't be served on her lush, voluptuous body.

What song would he sing? He didn't know any songs. What key was he meant to sing in? What the hell was a 'key'? Would Tabitha be too upset if he didn't sing? He wondered.

He hadn't sung a single note since his father had caught him singing in the bath when he was fifteen. He'd been made to wash his mouth out with garlic soap...

He couldn't sing.

...

Tabitha woke up that evening to a soft, mellow voice echoing down her chimney and through the smoke curling from the dying embers of her fire. It was the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard.

'Love is an onion.

It flavours the greatest

Dishes

And yet stings your bleeding

Fingers-

Brings tears to your eyes

So that you can't cut that

Onion-heart in half

Without hurting.

You can torture it;

Skin it to see platinum flesh

Or violet blood,

Gouge it and

Stick it with malice and rage and carelessness

But it won't disappear.

However maimed

And torn-

It is still an onion; a tangible thing

That you can touch

And taste

And smell

And feel-love in its purest form.

And like an onion, love is never

Ever wholly sweet'

She lay on her silken sheets and plush pillows feeling warmth saturate her insides. She flushed with embarrassment mingled with pleasure. He'd done it. He'd _actually _done it.

What neither Dracula nor Tabitha knew was that her chimney flue was connected with other chimney flues, among them the one to Vlad's study where he and Ingrid listened with disappointed frowns. They had a Dictaphone and everything, expecting something between a croaky, schoolboy soprano or a half-hearted baritone. They were gifted with neither.

Vlad sighed and looked at Ingrid mournfully. "Looks like the joke's on us. It turns out he _can _sing."


	18. Le Trappe is back!

**Hi, I'm sorry this is so short, but after my FAIL of a previous chapter, I've decided that I've got to plan something that is a climax to the anticipation...it may well be my last chapter, so it had better be bloody good! LOL. I want to thank everybody for their reviews and/or story-author alerts including but not exclusively LJSfanatic , negschainsaw and starrrz.**

**As ever, please read and review-it helps me develop and improve for my original writing :)**

Dracula chuckled at Tabitha's gullibility-did she honestly think that he was _ever _goingto sing? And his children; if they actually thought that was _his _voice, they were far more stupid than he gave them credit for-not his precious Vladdie, of course, (he was simply too trusting-which, admittedly in Vampire terms was merely a synonym for 'total braindead moron') but Ingrid…his lip curled in distaste as it always did whenever the wretched spawn crossed his mind, and he ruthlessly dismissed the inconsequential girl from his thoughts.

At this precise moment, he was busy preparing a batch of _Le__ trappe__ pour vampire_. He'd done something similar years ago, around Valentine 's Day, but due to his son's meddling…Dracula shuddered with exasperation…his devious, dastardly plan had all gone horrifically wrong. This time around, he was going to keep the stuff out of sight-which was why he'd sent Renfield off on an errand and so didn't have him helping with the preparation of the parfum. The last thing he wanted was for his kitten to fall in love with that grotesque louse the way Mina Van Helsing had done. To lose yet another woman to that creature would be unendurably humiliating.

"Grown man's tears…poodle…" he muttered, an ominous feeling pricking at his cold, lifeless skin. All of these ingredients were things that all women loved…but his kitten wasn't all women. Tabby was entirely different; she'd probably cringe at the grown man's tears and sniff disdainfully at the poodle. At the very worst, the only thing on the recipe that she'd find irresistible would be the chocolate. But would that be such a bad thing? For the past five years, almost all he'd dreamed about was having her gobble him up. The thing was, he'd rather like for there to be something left of him at nightfall.

So, he continued with his enticing concoction, after all, the worst that could happen was that he'd have to lock himself into an impenetrable coffin until the effects of _le trappe _wore off…wasn't it?


End file.
